Works of Fisher Ames

WORKS

OF

FISHER AMES.

COMPILED BY A NUMBER OF HIS FRIENDS

^^•'-

TO WHICH ARE PREFIXED. \\

NOTICES

OF HIS LIFE AND CHARACTER

NIHIL TETIGIT Q_UOD NON ORNAVIT.

BOSTON :

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY T. B. WAIT
COURT-STREET.

1809.

f

^

DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, TO WIT :

BE it remembered, That on the ninth day of February, in the thirty-third year of the
Independence of the United States of America, Frances Ames, of the said district, has depos
ited in this office, the title of a book, the right whereof she claims as proprietor, in the words
following, to wit : " Works of Fisher Ames. Compiled by a number of his Friends. To
which are prefixed, Notices of his Life and Character. Nihil tetigit quod non omavit."

In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, *' An act for the
encouragement of learning by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books to the author*
and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned ;" and also to an act en
titled, " An act supplementary to ;iii act, entitled, an act for the encouragement of learning,
by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the authors and proprietors of such
copies during the times therein mentioned ; and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of
Designing, Engraving, and Etching Historical, and other Prints."

WILLIAM S. SHAW,
Clerk of the District of Massachusetts.

NOTICES

OF THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF

FISHER AMES.

M

,R. AMES was distinguished among the eminent men of
our country. All admitted, for they felt, his extraordinaiy
powers ; few pretended to doubt, if any seemed to deny, the
purity of his heart. His exemplary life commanded respect ;
the charms of his conversation and manners won affection.
He was equally admired and beloved.

His publick career was short, but brilliant. Called into the
service of his country in seasons of her most critical emer
gency, and partaking in the management of her councils
during a most interesting period of her history, he obtained a
place in the first rank of her statesmen, legislators, orators,
and patriots. By a powerful and original genius, an impres
sive and uniform virtue he succeeded, as fully perhaps as any
political character in a republick agitated by divisions ever did,
in surmounting the two pernicious vices, designated by the
inimitable biographer of Agricola, insensibility to merit on
the one hand, and envy on the other.

BECOMING a private citizen, he still operated extensively
upon the publick opinion and feeling by conversation and

1V LIFE OF FISHER AMES.

writing. When least in the publick eye, he remained the
object of enthusiastick regard to his friends, and of fond reli
ance and hope to those lovers of his country who discern the
connection between the agency of a few and the welfare of
the many ; whilst in the breasts of the community at large he
engaged a sentiment of lively tenderness and peculiar respect.

THE sickness which diffused an oppressive languor upon
his best years, was felt to be a common misfortune ; and the
news of his death, though not unexpected, gave a pang of dis
tress to the hearts of thousands. Those inhabitants of the
capital of Massachusetts who had always delighted to honour
him, solicited his lifeless remains for the privilege of indulg
ing their grief, and evincing their admiration by funeral obse
quies. The sud rites being performed, those who had cher
ished his character and talents with such constant regard and
veneration, and who felt their own and the publick loss in his
death with poignant affliction, demanded a publication of his
works. They urged, that it would gratify their affection,
reflect honour on his name, and be a voice of instruction and
warning to his countiy.

IN compliance with their general and earnest wish this vo
lume is given to the world. Some account of the author's
life and character is thought due, if not to his fame, yet to the
interest which all have in those " who were born, and who have
acted, as though they were born for their country and for
mankind."

HE needs not our praises ; he would be dishonoured by our
flattery ; but he was our distinguished benefactor. We owe a
record of this kind, though imperfectly executed, to our sense
of his merits and services, and to our gratitude to heaven who
endues some with extraordinary gifts to be employed for the
benefit of others. It is the part of justice to afford to those
who desire it all practicable lights to guide their judgment of
an eminent man living in dmes and acting in situations, which
expose his character to be imperfectly understood. We must
pay respect to that natural and laudable curiosity of mankind,
which asks an explanation of the causes that may have contributed

LIFE OF FISHER AMES. v

to form any peculiar excellence in one of our species, and which
takes an interest in the circumstances and events of his life.
Examples of great talents diligently exerted, and of shining
virtues practised with uniformity should be preserved and dis
played as furnishing models in conduct and incentives to excel
lence. By such exhibitions the timid are encouraged and the
inactive roused. Emulation fires generous spirits to endeav
our to fill the void made by the loss of the eminent. Are any-
capable of doing great and durable good to their country and
the world, they are stimulated to tread in the fair paths which
have been trodden before ; and those whom nature and cir
cumstances have confined to a small compass of action are in
structed to place their single talent to the best account.

FISHER AMES lived and died in his native place. He was
born April 9, 1758, in the old parish of Dedham, a pleasant
country town about nine miles south of Boston, and the shire
town of Norfolk. He sprung from one of the oldest families
in Massachusetts. In the line of his ancestry is the Rev.
William Ames, a famous English divine, author of the Me
dulla Theologiae and several controversial tracts. He was
educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, and to prevent an
expulsion in form on account of his strenuous assertion of
Calvinistical principles he forsook this college, went abroad,
and was chosen by the states of Friesland professor of their
university. He was at the synod of Dort, 1618. He had de
termined to emigrate to New-England, but was prevented by-
death in November, 1633.

THE father of FISHER AMES was a physician and the son
of a physician who lived in Bridgewater. His mother was
daughter of Jeremiah Fisher, Esq. one of the most respectable
farmers in the county. Dr. Nathaniel Ames was a man of
acuteness and wit, of great activity, and a cheerful and amiable
temper. To his skill in his profession he added a knowledge
of natural philosophy, astronomy, and malhematicks. He died
in July, 1764, leaving four sons and one daughter.

FISHER was the youngest child. The mother, as if " antici
pating the future lustre of the jewel committed to her care,"

vi LIFE OF FISHER AMES.

early resolved to struggle with her narrow circumstances in
order to give this son a literary education ; and she has lived
to see his eminence and prosperity, to receive the expressions
of his filial piety, and to weep over his grave.

IT has been observed, that those who are prodigies of infant
genius often disappoint the expectations they have raised,
•whilskrninds of no peculiar promise and even of tardy growth
in early years have been known at length to bear vigorous
and lasting fruit. On the other hand it cannot be denied,
that a great proportion of those who display extraordinary-
powers in mature life give indications of decided superiority
in youth. The accounts of Mr. AMES prove the early expan
sion of his faculties. When he was six years old, he began
the study of Latin. From this time till he entered the uni
versity he had a variety of instructors in succession. He at
tended the town school, when the master happened to be
capable of teaching him, and at other times recited his lessons
to the Rev. Mr. Haven, minister of the parish, a gentleman
to whom he always showed much respect and friendship.

His frequent change of instructers and desultory application
to the languages were obvious disadvantages attending his ini
tiation in classical literature. He did not receive that exact and
sedulous culture, which such a mind as his deserved and would
have fully repaid. His native energies in a good degree sup
plied these defects and carried him forward in the road of im
provement. In July? 1770, soon after the completion of his
twelfth year, he was admitted to Harvard college. Previous
to his beinp- offered, he was examined by a gentleman accus
tomed to teach the languages, who expressed admiration of his
quickness and accuracy, and pronounced him a youth of un
common attainments, and bright promise.

DURING this period he was remarkable for close application
in the hours of study, and for animation and gaiety in the in
tervals of relaxation. He entered the university, indeed, at
too tender an age for the mind to grasp the abstract sciences.
It is said, however, that in the literary exercises in general
he was ready and accurate, and in particular branches distin-

LIFE OF FISHER AMES. vii

guished. He very soon gained the reputation of shining parts.
He was attentive to his studies and regular in his conduct.
Young as he was, he did not abuse his power over that portion
of his time which the laws of the institution submit to the dis
cretion of the student, by idleness and trifling ; nor his liberty
of self-direction in the choice of his associates, by consorting
with the vicious. At that early period he might say, as he did
when he came into life : " I have never sought friends, whom
I was not willing and desirous to be known to have."

IT was not his fancy or his passion to break through the
fences of discipline, or come into collision with the authority
of his preceptors. He had a good standing with the govern
ment of the college, without losing any part of the friendship
and esteem of his fellow-students. His tutors were accustom
ed to speak of his qualities with emphatick praise. There was
a peculiar mildness and modesty in the character of young
AMES, joined to a vivacity and pleasantness, that endeared him
both to his supcriours and equals.

HE was a favourite in a society, then recently formed among
the students for improvement in elocution. It was early observ
ed, that he coveted the glory of eloquence. In his declamation
before this society he was remarked for the energy and pro
priety, with which he delivered such specimens of impassioned
oratory as his genius led him to select. As a task or voluntary
trial of his skill, he produced occasionally a theme or oration,
and was known sometimes to invoke the muse of poetry,
though he affected then, as he did afterwards, to decline the
reputation of a poetick talent. Probably he was never satisfied
with the success of his attempts in an art, in which want of
excellence is want of every thing. His compositions at this
time bore the characteristick stamp which has always marked
his speaking and writing. They were sententious and full of
ornament.

IT is especially to be told, that the morals of the youngjcol-
lejgi§Jl4>assjedjthe ordeal of a four__years residence at_the uni
versity unhurt. He surmounted the temptations to vice,

x LIFE OF FISHER AMES.

of New-England offer to young men of literary education and
limited means of support, and which husJbeen the first resort
after leaving college of many of our distinguished men in all
professions.

THIS period, however, which engaged his services to the
community, was not lost to himself. He improved his leisure by
indulging his favourite propensity to books. During this time,
as he frequently said, he read with avidity bordering on en-
• thusiasm almost every author within his reacliu^He revised the
Latin classicks, which he had studied at dbllege. He read
works illustrating Greek and Roman antiquities and the my
thology of the ancients ; natural and civil history, and some of
the best novels. Poetry was both his food and luxury. He
read the principal English poets, and became familiar with
Milton and Shakespeare, dwelt on their beauties, and fixed
V passages of peculiar excellence on his memory. He had a
high relish of the works of Virgil, and at this time could re
peat considerable portions of the Eclogues and Georgics and
most of the splendid and touching passages of the jEneid.
This multifarious, though, for want of a guide, indiscriminate,
and, probably, in some instances ill-directed reading must have
contributed to extend and enrich the mind of the young stu
dent. It helped to supply that fund of materials for speaking
and writing which he possessed in singular abundance ; and
hence partly he derived his remarkable fertility of allusion, his
ability to evolve a train of imagery adapted to every subject of
which he treated.

MR. AMES was a student at law in the office of William
Tudor, Esq. of Boston, and commenced practice at Dedham
in the autumn of the year 1781. He had already begun to
show the " publick and private sense of a man." The contest
of the States with the parent country awakened in him a lively
interest. He espoused their cause) and, though too young to
take an active part, watched its progress with putriotick con
cern. . In one instance he was selected for a publick trust,
which he discharged with an ability beyond his years.

LIFE OF FTSHER AMES. »

THE inconveniences of a depreciated paper currency pro
ducing general discontent and in some cases acts of violence)
a convention of delegates from every part of the state assem
bled at Concord with a view to devise a remedy for the evil.
They agreed to regulate the prices of articles arbitrarily, and
adjourned to the autumn. At the adjourned meeting Mr.
AMES attended by delegation from his town. The plan adopt
ed at the prior meeting had failed, as was anticipated by the
discerning, though it was still an object with many to continue
the experiment.

MR. AMES displayed the subject in a lucid and impressive
speech, shelving the futility of attempting to establish by power
that value of things, which depended solely on consent ; that
the embarrassment was inevitable, and that it must be met by
patriotism and patience, and not by attempting to do what was
impossible to be done.

MR. AMES began to be mentioned as a pleader of uncommon
eloquence, when his appearance as an essay-writer contributed
to raise and extend his reputation. The government of the
state of Massachusetts was administered upon the principles
of justice, which required that it should enforce the payment
of private debts, and that publick credit should be supported.
Various causes made these functions of the government dis
tressing or inconvenient to many of the people, whose discon
tents restless intriguing men artfully and industriously inflamed.
The spirit of licentiousness broke out in an insurrection. The
revolutionary fervour, which had been kindled in the war with
Great Britain, seemed to threaten with destruction our own con
stitution and laws. Liberty was confounded with license ; and
those who could not be governed by reason appeared to claim
a right not to be governed by force.

Lucius JUNIUS BRUTUS wrote to animate the government
to decision and energy ; and when the insurrection was sup
pressed, CAMILLUS explained the lessons inculcated by the
recent dangers and escapes of the country. These pieces
were pronounced to be the production of no common mind.
It was the light of genius and wisdom darted athwart the

xiv LIFE OF FISHER AMES.

FROM the commencement of the government the country-
was believed to be deeply interested in the event of the bill for
funding the publick debt. On the introduction of this bill the
opposition gained vigour by the junction of one of the framers
and most able * supporters of the constitution, who from this
time became the leader of the discontented party. He pro
posed to fund the debt, but in a way in which it was deem
ed impossible it should be funded. His proposal, therefore, was
viewed as tending to defeat the object which it professed
to favour. At every stage of this momentous business Mr.
AMES employed his resources of argument and eloquence, till
the bill was passed into a law.

THE famous commercial resolutions of Mr. Madison, found
ed on a report of the secretary of state, Mr. Jefferson, were ap
prehended to put in great hazard our prosperity and indepen
dence. To subserve the interests .of commerce was the pre
text; objects purely political, as Mr. AMES thought, were the
motives. He insisted, that commerce could not be served by
regulations, which should oblige us to " sell cheap and buy
dear" ; and he inferred, that the effect of the resolutions could
only be to gratify partialities and resentments, which all states-
,men should discard.

/4* His speech on the appropriation for the British treaty was
an era of his political life. For many months he had been sink
ing under weakness, and though he had attended the long and
interesting debate on this question, which involved the consti
tution and the peace of the United States, it was feared he
would be unable to speak. But when the time came for tak
ing a vote so big with consequences, his emotions would not
suffer him to be silent. His appearance, his situation, the mag
nitude of his subject, the force and the pathos of his eloquence
gave this speech an extraordinary power over the feelings of
the dignified and numerous assembly who heard it. When
he had finished, a member in opposition moved to postpone
the decision on the question, that they might not vote under

* Mr. Madison.

LIFE OF FISHER AMES. xv

the influence of .a sensibility, which their calm judgment
might condemn^

AT the close of the session, in the spring of 1796, Mr.
AMES travelled into Virginia for his health. He thought he
derived partial benefit from drinking of the warm springs in
Berkley county, and more from the journey and unremitting
attention to regimen. In this visit he was an object of the
most friendly and respectful attention, individual and publick.
He found many friends of the Washington system in this
state, whose representatives had taken the lead in opposition,
observing in a letter, " Virginia has been misrepresented
to us, as much as the measures of government have been to
them ; and good men are no where generally hostile to the
federal cause."

AT this time the college of New-Jersey expressed their
estimation of his publick character by conferring on him the
degree of Doctor of Laws.

HE gained sufficient health to be able to attend the next
session of congress, and to enter into business, though not
with all his usual spirit. He was chairman of the committee,
which reported the answer to the president's speech. This
answer contained a most affectionate and respectful notice of
the president's declaration, that he now stood for the last time
in their presence. In conclusion it said : "for your country's
sake, for the sake of republican liberty it is our earnest wish,
that your example may be the guide of your successors, and
thus, after being the ornament and safeguard of the present
age, become the patrimony of our descendants." In the
debate on this answer he vindicated, with his accustomed
openness and ability, the claim of Washington to the unquali
fied love and gratitude of the nation.

THE session being terminated, Mr. AMES, who had previ
ously declined another election, became a private citizen. He
retired to his favourite residence at Dedham, to enjoy repose
in the bosom of his family, and to unite with his practice as a
lawyer, those rural occupations in which he delighted. He
applied to the management of his farm and fruitery a portion

xviii LIFE OF FISHER AMES.

clanger to the liberty of the world. The partiality to France
in the national feelings of Americans he regarded as having a
tendency at all times to corrupt and pervert American poli
ticks. Nothing can exceed the interest with which he watch
ed the efforts of Great Britain against the all-conquering and
eccentrick ambition of France ; not only because he was just to
the British nation and character ; but because he saw, that all
our hopes of independence were staked upon the issue.

ON all these subjects Mr. AMES was awake, while many
others slept. What they saw obscurely, he saw clearly. What
to them was distant affected him as near. The admission of
danger implies duty ; and many refuse to be alarmed, because
they wish to be at ease. The despondent think nothing can
be done ; the presumptuous nothing need be done. Consider
ing these facts and opinions, Mr. AMES'S writings will be
acknowledged to have produced much effect.

IN the year 1804, Mr. AMES was chosen president of Har
vard College. His health would not have allowed him to ac
cept the place, had other reasons permitted. Though greatly
interested in the education of the young, he did not think his
habits adapted to the office, and therefore declined the honour.

FROM 1795 his health continued to decline, with partial and
flattering intermissions, until his death. He was a striking ex
ample of magnanimity and patience under suffering. Retain
ing always the vigour and serenity of his mind, he appeared
to make those reflections which became his situation. When
speaking of his first attack, he observes, " I trust I realise the
value of those habits of thinking, which 1 have cherished for
some time. Sickness is not wholly useless to me. It has in
creased the warmth of my affection to my friends. It has
taught me to make haste in forming the plan of my life, if it
should be spared, more for private duties and social enjoy
ments, and less for the splendid emptiness of publick station,
than yet I have done."

AT length after an extreme debility for two years, the frame
which had so long tottered was about to fall. With composure
and dignity he saw the approach of his dissolution. He had

LIFE OP FISHER AMES. xix

many reasons for wishing to live. The summons came to
demand of his noon of life the residue of a day which had been
bright and fair ; of his love of fame the reiioqubhment of all
that respect and honour, which the world solicited him to re
ceive ; of his patriotism the termination of all his cares and
labours for a country, which he loved with inextinguishable
ardour; of his conjugal affection a separation from an object
inexpressibly dear ; of his parental tenderness the surrender
of his children to the chances and vicissitudes of life without
his counsel and care.

BUT these views of his condition did not sink his heart,
which was sustained by pious confidence and hope. He ap
peared no\v what he always was, and rose in virtues in propor
tion to his trial, expressing the tenderest concern for those
whom he should leave, and embracing in his solicitude his
country and mankind. He expired on the morning of the
fourth of July, 1808. When the intelligence reached Boston,
a meeting of citizens was held with a view to testify their re
spect for his character and services. In compliance with
their request his remains were brought to the capital for in
terment, at which a eulogy was pronounced by his early
friend Mr. Dexter, and every mark of respectful notice was
paid.

FUNERAL honours to publick characters, being customary
offices of decorum and propriety, are necessarily equivocal
testimonies of esteem. But Mr. AMES was a private man,
who was honoured because he was lamented. He was followed
to the grave by a longer procession than has perhaps appeared
on any similar occasion. It was a great assemblage, drawn by
gratitude and admiration around the bier of one exalted in
their esteem by his pre-eminent gifts, and endeared to their
hearts by the surpassing loveliness of his disposition.

HAVING taken notice of the history of Mr. AMES, we are
required to present some additional views of his talents, opin
ions, and character. The reader of his works will, no doubt,
concur with those who knew him and who heard him in pub-
lick and private, in saying, that he had a mind of high order,

xx LIFE OF FISHER AMES.

in some particulars of the highest, and that he has a just claim
to be classed with the men of genius, that quality which it ijp£
so much more easy to discern than to define ; " that quality,
without which judgment is cold and knowledge inert; that V
energy, which collects, combines, amplifies, and animates."
We observe in Mr. AMES a liberal portion of all the faculties
and qualities that enter into this character, understanding, me
mory, imagination, invention, sensibility, ardour. "/

As a speaker and as a writer he had the power to enlighten
and persuade, to move4, to please, to charm, to astonish, fte
united those decorations that belong to fine talents to that pen
etration and judgment that designate an acute and solid mind.
Many of his opinions have the authority of predictions fulfilled
and fulfilling. He had the ability of investigation, and, where
it was necessary, did investigate with patient attention, going
through a series of observation and deduction, and tracing the
links which connect one truth with another. When the result
of his researches was exhibited in discourse, the steps of a
logical process were in some measure concealed by the colour
ing of rhetorick. Minute calculations and dry details were
employments, however, the least adapted to his peculiar con
struction of mind. It was easy and delightful for him to illus
trate by a picture, but painful and laborious to prove by a dia
gram. It was the prerogative of his mind to discern by a glance,
so rapid as to seem intuition, those truths which common ca
pacities struggle hard to apprehend ; and it was the part of his^
eloquence to display, expand, and enforce them.

His imagination was a distinguishing feature of his mind. /.
Prolific, grand, sportive, original, it gave him the command
of nature and art, and enabled him to vary the disposition and
the dress of his. ideas without end. Now it assembled most
pleasing images, adorned with all that is soft and beautiful ; and
now rose in the storm, wielding the elements and flashing with
the most awful splendours.

VERY few men have produced more original combinations.
He presented resemblances and contrasts which none saw

LIFE OF FISHER AMES. xxi

before, but all admitted to be just and striking. In delicate and ^
powerful wit he was pre-eminent.

THE exercise of these talents and accomplishments was
guided and exalted by a sublime morality and the spirit of ra
tional piety, was modelled by much good taste, and prompted
by an ardent heart.

MR. AMES was more adapted to the senate than the bar.
His speeches in congress, always respectable, were many of
them excellent, abounding in argument and sentiment, hav
ing all the necessary information, embellished with rhetorical
beauties and animated with patriotick fires.

So much of the skill and address of the orator do they ex
hibit, that, though he had little regard to the rules of the art,
they are perhaps fair examples of the leading precepts for the
several parts of an oration. In debates on important questions
he generally waited before he spoke, till the discussion had pro
ceeded at some length, when he was sure to notice every ar
gument that had been offered. He was sometimes in a mino
rity, when he well considered the temper of a majority in a
republican assembly, impatient of contradiction, refutation, or
detection, claiming to be allowed sincere in their convictions,
and disinterested in their views. He was not unsuccessful in

*

uniting the prudence and conciliation necessary in parliamen
tary speaking, with lawful freedom of debate and an effectual
use of those sharp and massy weapons which his talents
supplied, and which his frankness and zeal prompted him to
employ.

HE did not systematically study the exterior graces of speak
ing, but his attitude was erect and easy, his gestures manly
and forcible, his intonations varied and expressive, his articu
lation distinct, and his whole manner animated and natural. His^k
written compositions, it will be perceived, have that glow and *
vivacity which belonged to his speeches.

ALL the other efforts of his mind, however, were probably
exceeded by his powers in conversation. He appeared among
his friends with an illuminated face, and with peculiar amenity
and captivating kindness displayed all the playful felicity of his

xxii LIFE OF FISHER AMES.

wit, the force of his intellect, and the fertility of his imagina
tion.

ON the kind or degree of excellence which criticism may
concede or deny to Mr. AMES'S productions, we do not under
take with accurate discrimination to determine. He was un
doubtedly rather actuated by the genius of oratory, than disci
plined by the precepts of rhetorick ; was more intent on
exciting attention and interest and producing effect, than
securing the praise of skill in the artifice of composition.
Hence criticks might be dissatisfied, yet hearers charmed.
The abundance of materials, the energy and quickness of con
ception, the inexhaustible fertility of mind, which he possessed,
as they did not require, so they forbade a rigid adherence to
artificial guides in the disposition and employment of his in
tellectual stores. To a certain extent, such a speaker and
writer may claim to be his own authority.

IMAGE crouded upon image in his mind, he is not charge
able with affectation in the use of figurative language ; his
tropes are evidently prompted by imagination, and not forced
into his service. Their novelty and variety create constant
surprise and delight. But they are, perhaps, too lavishly em
ployed. The fancy of his hearers is sometimes overplied with
stimulus, and the importance of the thought liable to be con
cealed in the multitude and beauty of the metaphors. His
condensation of expression may be thought to produce occa
sional abruptness. He aimed rather at the terseness, strength,
and vivacity of the short sentence, than the dignity of the full ^
and flowing period. His style is conspicuous for sententious
brevity, for antithesis and point. Single ideas appear with
so much lustre and prominence, that the connection of the
several parts of his discourse is not always obvious to the com
mon mind, and the aggregate impression of the composition
is not always completely obtained. In those respects where his
peculiar excellencies came near to defects, he is rather to be
admired than imitated.

MR. AMES, though trusting much to his native resources,
did by no means neglect to apply the labours of others to his

LIFE OF FISHER AMES. xxiii

own use. His early love of books has been mentioned ; and
he retained and cherished the same propensity through his
whole life. He was particularly fond of ethical studies ; but he
went more deeply into history, than any other branch of learn
ing. Here he sought the principles of legislation, the science
of politicks, the causes of the rise and decline of nations, and
the character and passions of men acting in publick affairs. He i
read Herodotus, Thucyclides, Livy, Tacitus, Plutarch, and the j
modern historians of Greece and Rome. The English history *
he studied with much care. Hence he possessed a great fund
of historical knowledge always at command both for conversa
tion and writing. He contemplated the character of Cicero as
an orator and statesman with fervent admiration.

HE never ceased to be a lover of the poets. Homer, in Pope,
he often perused ; and read Virgil in the original within two
years of his death with increased delight. His knowledge of
the French enabled him to read their authors, though not to
speak their language. He was accustomed to read the scrip
tures, not only as containing a system of truth and duty, but as
displaying in their poetical parts, all that is sublime, animated,
and affecting in composition. His learning seldom appeared
as such, but was interwoven with his thoughts and became
his own.

IN publick speaking he trusted much to excitement, and did
little more in his closet than draw the outlines of his speech
and reflect on it, till he had received deeply the impressions
he intended to make ; depending for the turns and figures of
language, illustrations and modes of appeal to the passions, on
his imagination and feelings at the time. This excitement
continued, when the cause had ceased to operate. After debate
his mind was agitated, like the ocean after a storm, and his
nerves were like the shrouds of a ship, torn by the tempest.

HE brought his mind much in contact with the minds of '
others, ever pleased to converse on subjects of publick interest,
and seizing every hint that might be useful to him in writing
for the instruction of his fellow-citizens. He justly thought,
that persons below him in capacity might have good ideas.

xxiv LIFE OF FISHER AMES.

which he might employ in the correction and improvement of
his own. His attention was always awake to grasp the materials
that came to him from every source. A constant labour was
going on in his mind.

HE never sunk from an elevated tone of thought and action,
nor suffered his faculties to slumber in indolence. The circum
stances of the times, in which he was called to act, contributed
to elicit his powers, and supply fuel to his genius. The great
est interests were subjects of debate. When he was in the
national legislature, the spirit of party did not tie the hands of
the publick functionaries ; and questions, on which depended the
peace or war, the safety or danger, the freedom or dishonour
of the country^ might be greatly influenced by the counsels and
efforts of a single patriot.

THE political principles and opinions of Mr. AMES are not
difficult to be understood, and should be attentively regarded
by those who will estimate the merit of his labours. Mr.
AMES was emphatically a republican. He saw, that many per
sons confounded a republick with a democracy. He con
sidered them as essentially distinct and really opposite. Accord
ing to his creed, a republick is that structure of an elective
government, in which the administration necessarily prescribe
to themselves the general good as the object of all their mea
sures ; a democracy is that, in which the present popular pas
sions, independent of the publick good, become a guide to
the rulers. In the first, the reason and interests of the society
govern ; in the second, their prejudices and passions. The
frame of the American constitution supposes the dangers of
democracy. The division of the legislature into two branches
and their diverse origin, the long duration of office in one
branch, the distinct power of the executive, the independence
and permanency of the judiciary are designed to balance and
check the democratick tendencies of our polity. They are
contrivances and devices voluntarily adopted by the people to
restrain themselves from obstructing, by their own mistakes or
perversity, the attainment of the publick welfare. They arc
professed means of insuring to the nation rulers, who will pre-

LIFE OF FISHER AME§. xxv

fer the durable good of the whole to the transient advantage
of the whole or a part. When these provisions become inef
fectual, and the legislator, the executive magistrate, and the
judge become the instruments of the passions of the people, or
of the governing majority, the government, whatever may be
its form, is a democracy, and the publick liberty is no longer
safe. True republican rulers are bound to act, not simply as
those who appoint them would) but, as they ought ; democrat-
ick leaders will act in subordination to those very passions
which it is the object of government to control ; but as thefeffect
of this subserviency is to procure them unlimited confidence
and devotedness, the powers of society become concentrated in
their hands. Then it is, that men, not laws, govern. Nothing
cau be more inconsistent with the real liberty of the people,
than the power of the democracy thus brought into action.
For in this case the government is a despotism beyond rule,
not a republick confined to rule. It is strong, but its strength
is of a terrible sort ; strong to oppress, not to protect ; not
strong to maintain liberty, property, and right, it cannot secure
justice nor make innocence safe.

MR. AMES apprehended, that our government had been
sliding down from a true republick towards the abyss of demo
cracy ; and that the ambition of demagogues operating on
personal, party, and local passions, was attaining its objects.
" A quack doctor, a bankrupt attorney, and a renegade from
England, by leading the mobs of three cities, become worth a
national bribe ; and after receiving it, they are not the servants
but the betrayers of the state." The only resource against this
degeneracy of our affairs and their final catastrophe Mr. AMES
considered to be " the correctness of the publick opinion, and
the energy that is to maintain it." Hence his zeal to support
the federal administration in the constitutional exercise of its
powers, and his fervid appeals to enlighten, animate, and com
bine the friends of republican liberty. Hence the stress he
laid on the principles, habits, and institutions that pertain to
the New-England state of society. " Constitutions," said he,
" are but paper ; society is the substratum of government.

B

xxviii LIFE OF FISHER AMES.

men, whose virtues and characters are opened and coloured
by the sympathy of united efforts, is no mean compensation."
His health and perhaps his life were the costly oblations which
he laid on the altar of patriotism. The fine machinery of his
system could ill withstand the excitement produced by publick
speaking and his keen interest in pubiick affairs.

IT is happy for mankind, when those who engage admira
tion deserve esteem ; for vice and folly derive a pernicious in
fluence from an alliance with qualities that naturally command
applause. In the character of Mr. AMES the circle of the
virtues seemed to be complete, and each virtue in its proper
place.

THE objects of religion presented themselves with a strong
interest to his mind. The relation of the world to its author,
and of this life to a retributory scene in another, could not be
contemplated by him without the greatest solemnity. The
religious sense was, in his view, essential in the constitution of
man. He placed a full reliance on the divine origin of chris-
uuiuty. If there was ever a time in his life, when the light of
revelation shone dimly upon his understanding, he did not
rashly close his mind against clearer vision, for he was more
fearful of mistakes to the disadvantage of a system, which he
saw to be excellent and benign, than of prepossessions in its
favour. He felt it his duty and interest to inquire, and discov
ered on the side of faith a fulness of evidence little short of de
monstration. At about thirty five he made a publick profession of
his belief in the Christian religion, and was a regular attendant on
its services. In regard to articles of belief, his conviction was
confined to those leading principles, about which Christians
have little diversity of opinion. Subtle questions of theology,
from various causes often agitated, but never determined, he
neither pretended nor desired to investigate, satisfied that they
related to points uncertain or unimportant. He loved to view
religion on the practical side, as designed to operate by a few
simple and grand truths on the affections, actions, and habits
of men. He cherished the sentiment and experience of reli
gion, careful to ascertain the genuineness and value of impres-

LIFE OF FISHER AMES. xxix

vions and feelings by their moral tendency. He insisted
much on the distinction between the real and lively, but gen
tle and unaffected emotions of a pious mind, naturally passing
into the life, and that " morbid fanaticism," which consists in
inexplicable sensations, internal acts, and artificial raptures,
that have no good aspect upon religious obedience. In esti
mating a sect he regarded more its temper than its tenets ; he
treated the conscientious opinions and phraseology of others
on sacred subjects with tenderness, and approached all ques
tions concerning divine revelation with modesty and awe. His
prudence and moderation in these particulars may, possibly,
have been misconstrued into an assent to propositions, which
he meant merely not to deny, or an adoption of opinions or
language, which he chose merely not to condemn. He of all
men was the last to countenance exclusive claims to purity of
faith, founded on a zeal for peculiar dogmas, which multitudes
of good men, approved friends of truth, utterly reject. He was
no enemy to improvement, to fair inquiry, and Christian free
dom ; but innovations in the modes of worship and instruc
tion, without palpable necessity or advantage, he discouraged, as
tending to break the salutary associations of the pious mind.
His conversation and behaviour evinced the sincerity of his
religious impressions. No levity upon these subjects ever
escaped his lips ; but his manner of recurring to them in con
versation indicated reverence and feeling. The sublime, the
affecting character of Christ he never mentioned without
emotion.

MR. AMES was married July 15th, 1792, to Frances, third
daughter of John Worthington, Esq. of Springfield. He left
seven children, six of whom are sons ; the eldest fifteen years
old. He was gratefully sensible of the peculiar felicity of his
domestick life. In his beloved home his sickness found all
the alleviation, that a judicious and unwearied tenderness could
minister; and his intervals of health a succession of every
pleasing engagement and heartfelt satisfaction. The com
placency of his looks, the sweetness of his tones, his mild and
often playful manner of imparting instruction, evinced his ex-

xxx LIFE OP FISHElt AMES.

treme delight in the society of his family, who felt that they
derived from him their chief happiness, and found in his con
versation and example a constant excitement to noble and vir
tuous conduct. As a husband and father, he was all that is
provident, kind, and exemplary. He was riveted in the re
gards of those who were in his service. He felt all the ties
of kindred. The delicacy, the ardour, and constancy, with
which he cherished his friends, his readiness to the offices of
good neighbourhood, and his propensity to contrive and exe
cute plans of publick improvement, formed traits in his char
acter, each of remarkable strength. He cultivated friend
ship by an active and punctual correspondence, which made
the number of his letters very great, and which are not less ex
cellent than numerous.

WHEN he emerged from comparative obscurity to fill a large
space in the eyes of the pubiick, he lost none of the simplicity of
character and modesty of deportment which he had before dis^'
played, and neglected none of the friends of his youth. He never
yielded to that aversion to the necessary cares of life, which
men, accustomed to high concerns, or fond of letters, some
times improvidently indulge. Without any particle of avarice,
he was strictly economical.

HE had no envy, for he felt no personal rivalry. His ambi
tion was of that purified sort, which is rather the desire of
excellence than the reputation of it : he aimed more at desert,
than at superiority. He loved to bestow praise on those who
were competitors for the same kind of publick considera
tion as himself, not fearing that he should sink by their eleva
tion.

HE was tenacious of his rights, but scrupulous in his re
spect to the rights of others. The obloquy of political oppo
nents, was sometimes the price he paid for not deserving it.
But it could hardly give him pain, for he had no vulnerable
points in his character. He had a perfect command of his
temper ; his anger never proceeded to passion, nor his sense
of injury to revenge. If there was occasional asperity in his
language, it was easy to see there was no malignity in his dis-

LIFE OF FISHER AMES. xxxi

position. He tasted the good of his existence with, cheerful
gratitude ; how he received its evil has been already intimated.

His fears concerning publick affairs did not so much depress
his spirits, as awaken his activity to prevent or mitigate, by his
warnings and counsels, the disorder of the state. He was
deeply anxious for the fortunes of his country, but more intent
on rendering it all the service in his power ; convinced that,
however uncertain may be the events of the future, the present
duty is never performed in vain.

MR. AMES in person a little exceeded the middle height,
was well proportioned, and remarkably erect. His features
were regular, his aspect respectable and pleasing, his eye ex
pressive of benignity and intelligence. His head and face are
shown with great perfection in the engraving prefixed to his
works. In his manners he was easy, affable, cordial, inviting
confidence, yet inspiring respect. He had that refined spirit
of society, which observes the forms of a real, but not studied
politeness, and paid a most delicate regard to the propriety of
conversation and behaviour.

IN faint lines we have sketched the character of this man of
worth. If the reader ask, why he is represented without ble
mishes, the answer is, that, though as a man he undoubtedly
had faults, yet they were so few, so trivial, or so lost among his
virtues, as not to be observed, or not to be remembered.

WORKS

OF

FISHER AMES.

PREFACE.

OOME apology might be necessary for a portion of
the following work, if the numerous friends and admirers of
its author had not demanded its publication. They had long
desired to possess, in a decent and durable form, some of
those brilliant and profound thoughts with which they had
often been delighted and instructed. A republication of news
paper essays is not generally entitled to extensive publick
patronage, but the writings of Mr. AMES are believed to be
among the exceptions to this remark. His ardent and unre-
mitted zeal for the welfare of his country induced him at all
times to prefer the interest of that country to his own fame ;
and that genius, which might have immortalized his name
by another direction of its powers, was confined to the humble
but, perhaps, more useful office of teaching his fellow citi
zens, in the perishable journals of the day, the nature of
liberty and the danger of its loss. Some of those who had
been charmed with his eloquence proposed, in his lifetime,
to separate the productions of his pen from the less interesting
matter with which they were connected ; his delicacy forbade
them to proceed ; but the deep and spontaneous expression
of the publick grief at his death gave new life to the propo
sal which is now carried into effect.

PREFACE.

IN making a selection from the great mass of his works,
the aim has been to furnish a fair specimen of the talents and
sentiments of the author, to prefer such pieces as are of the
most general nature, to exclude offensive personal allusions,
except when the names of persons seem to be inseparable from
the subject, and to avoid repetitions. It will be perceived, that
the essays and speeches to the 3 78th page, inclusively, are a
republication from newspapers and pamphlets, and that the
writings from thence to the end of the volume, are now for
the first time published,

CONTENTS.

Lucius Junius Brutus Page 1

Camillus. No. 1 8

Camillus. No. II 12

Camillus. No. Ill 16

Speech in the Convention of Massachusetts on Biennial Elections 20

Speech on Mr. Madison's Resolutions 26

Speech on the British Treaty 58

Laocoon. No. 1 94

Laocoon. No. II 103

Eulogy on Washington , 115

School Books 134

Falkland. No. 1 136

Falkland. No. II 139

Falkland. No. Ill 144

Falkland. No. IV 150

The Observer 154

Sketches of the State of Europe. No. 1 156

Sketches of the State of Europe. No. II 159

Phocion. No. I. On British Influence 166

Phocion. No. II. On British Influence 170

Phocion. No. III. . On British Influence 173

Phocion. No. IV. On British Influence 176

Phocion. No. V. On British Influence 180

Phocion. No. VI. On French Influence 184

The new Romans. No. 1 188

The new Romans. No. II 191

The new Romans. No. Ill 195

The new Romans. No. IV 198

The new Romans. No. V 203

Russia 208

Foreign Politicks. No. 1 209

Foreign Politicks. No. II 212

Foreign Politicks. No. Ill 216

Hercules 222

No Revolutionist . . . , ." . . 226

CONTENTS.

Equality. No. 1 230

Equality. No. II , 232

Equality. No. Ill 235

Equality. No. IV 239

Equality. No. V 243

Equality. No. VI 246

" History is Philosophy teaching by Example" 252

Balance of Europe 255

Political Review. No. 1 262

Political Review. No. II. 265

Political Review. No. Ill 268

Monitor 272

Republican. No. I , 276

Republican. No. II 278

Sketch of the Character of Alexander Hamilton 282

Reflections on the War in Europe 291

Character of Brutus 298

On the Prospect of a New Coalition against France 302

The Combined Powers and France 307

The Successes of Buonaparte 314

Dangerous Power of France. No. I. 317

Dangerous Power of France. No. II 323

Dangerous Power of France. No. Ill . 335

Non- Intercourse Act 344

Lessons from History. No. I 347

Lessons from History. No. II 349

Lessons from History. No. Ill 352

Lessons from History. No. IV 354

Lessons from History. No. V 355

British Alliance 357

Duration of French Despotism 360

Dangerous Power of France. No. IV 368

Dangers of American Liberty 379

Hints and Conjectures concerning the Institutions of Lycurgus 438

American Literature 458

Review of a Pamphlet, entitled, Present State of the British

Constitution historically illustrated 473

Letters . 477

WORKS

FISHER AMES.

LUCIUS JUNIUS BRUTUS.

First published in the Independent Chronicle, at Boston, October 1?, 1786.

This political speculation was written after several of the courts ofjustice had been stopped
by the insurgents, and before the marching of the army commanded by general Lincoln,
which happily suppressed that rebellion. The writer was then young, and had taken no
share in publick affairs. A perusal of the publick journals and newspapers of that period
will prove, that no other man had then the boldness to express, and it is believed, that few had
the discernment to entertain, so many correct ideas upon the critical state of our country.
It is well also to remark, that the principles and opinions of the writer were precisely the
same with those, which he so eloquently maintained throughout his whole life. In a man,
endowed with a mind so luminous, and of a heart so pure, this uniform adherence to the
same opinions will afford no small weight of evidence in favour of their correctness. This
piece, written when it was wholly uncertain, whether the republick or its foes would be
victorious, is an ample proof of the fortitude, the patriotism, and the ardent zeal of the
writer. It evinces, that he was the declared foe of faction and rebellion, and the staunch
friend of a firm republican government.

Hen, iniseri cives
Non hastes, inimicaque castra,
Vestras spes uritis.

iVJLANY friends of the government seem to think it a duty
to practise a little well intended hypocrisy, when conversing
on the subject of the late commotions in the commonwealth.
They seem to think it prudent and necessary to conceal from
the people, and even from themselves, the magnitude of the
present danger. They affect to hope, that there is not any real
disaffection to government among the rioters, and that reason
will soon dispel the delusion which has excited them to arms,
1

2 LUCIUS JUNIUS BRUTUS,

But the present crisis is too important, and appearances too
menacing, to admit of pusillanimous councils, and half-way
measures. Every citizen has a right to know the truth. It is
time to speak out, and to rouse the torpid patriotism of men,
who have every thing to lose by the subversion of an excellent
constitution.

THE members of the general court acquired the esteem
of the most respectable part of the community, by their wise
and manly conduct during the last session: the task before
them is now become arduous indeed ; the eyes of their country,
and of the world, are upon them, while they resolve, either to
surrender the constitution of their country, without an effort,
or, by exerting the whole force of the state in its defence, to
satisfy their constituents, that its fall (if it must fall) was ef
fected by a force, against which all the resources of prudence
and patriotism had been called forth in vain.

IT will be necessary to consider the nature and probable con
sequences of the late riots, in order to determine, whether this
alternative, to surrender or to defend the constitution, is now
the question before the general court.

THE crime of high treason has not been always supposed to
imply the greatest moral turpitude and corruption of mind ;
but it has ever stood first on the list of civil crimes. In
European states, the rebellion of a small number of persons
can excite but little apprehension, and no danger ; an armed
force is there kept up, which can crush tumults almost as soon
as they break out ; or if a rebellion prevails, the conqueror suc
ceeds to the power and titles of his vanquished competitor.
The head of the government is changed ; but the government
remains.

THE crime of levying war against the state is attended with
particular aggravations and dangers in this country. Our go
vernment has no armed force ; it subsists by the supposed
approbation of the majority: the first murmurs of sedition
excite doubts of that approbation ; timid, credulous, and ambi
tious men concur to magnify the danger. In such a govern
ment, the danger is real, as soon as it is dreaded. No sooner

LUCIUS JUNIUS BRUTUS. 3

Is the standard of rebellion displayed, than men of desperate
principles and fortunes resort to it ; the pillars of government
are shaken ; the edifice totters from its centre ; the foot of a
child may overthrow it ; the hands of giants cannot rebuild it.
For if our government should be destroyed, what but the total
destruction of civil society must ensue ? A more popular form
could not be contrived, nor could it stand : one less popular
would not be adopted. The people, then, wearied by anarchy,
and wasted by intestine war, must fall an easy prey to foreign or
domestick tyranny. Besides, our constitution is the free act of
the people ; they stand solemnly pledged for its defence, and
treason against such a constitution implies a high degree of
moral depravity.

SUCH are the aggravations of the crime of high treason
against the commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Is it safe, by our timidity, and affected moderation, to afford
the principal perpetrators of this atrocious crime the prospect
of impunity? There are offences, which wise nations have
supposed it unsafe to pardon. For their forgeries, the bene
volent Dodd, and the ingenious Ryland, suffered death : the
pardon of the one was refused to the tears of a suppliant nation ;
nor could a monarch's favour save the other from his punish
ment. This crime against a free commonwealth, which has
no standing military force, will be repeated, if it is not punished :
witness the increase of insolence and numbers, with which the
late riots have succeeded each other. The certainty of punish
ment is the truest security against crimes : but if a number of
individuals are allowed with impunity to support, by arms,
their disapprobation of public measures, though the constitu
tion should remain, yet we shall be cursed with a government
by men, and not by laws. The plans of an enlightened and per
manent national policy may be defeated by, and, in fact, must
depend upon the desperate ambition of the worst men in the
commonwealth ; upon the convenience of bankrupts and sots,
who have gambled or slept away their estates ; upon the
sophisms of wrong headed men of some understanding; and
upon the prejudices, caprice, and ignorant enthusiasm of a

4 LUCIUS JUNIUS BRUTUS.

multitude of tavern-haunting politicians, who have none at all.
The supreme power of the state will be found to reside with
such men ; and in making laws, the object will not be the
general good, but the will and interest of the vile legislators.
This will be a government by men, and the worst of men ;
and such men, actuated by the strongest passions of the heart,
having nothing to lose, and hoping, from the general confusion,
to reap a copious harvest, will acquire, in every society, a larger
share of influence than equal property and abilities will give
to better citizens. The motives to refuse obedience to gov
ernment are many and strong ; impunity will multiply and
enforce them. Many men would rebel, rather than be ruined ;
but they would rather not rebel, than be hanged. The English
government may sometimes treat insurrections with lenity, for
they dare to punish. But who will impute our forbearance
either to prudence or magnanimity.

IT need not be observed, that it is rebellion to oppose any of
the courts of justice; but opposing the supreme court, whose
justices are so revered for their great learning and integrity, is
known to be high treason by every individual who has mingled
with the mob. Many of them have been deluded with the
pretence of grievances ; but they well know, that the method of
redress, which they have sought, is treasonable ; they dare to
commit the offence, because they believe that government have
not the power and spirit to punish them.

THIS seems, therefore, to be the time, and perhaps the only
time, to revive just ideas of the criminality and danger of trea
son ; for our government to govern; for our rulers to -vindicate
the -violated majesty of a free commonwealth; to convince the
advocates of democracy, that the constitution may yet be defended,
and that it is worth defending; that the supreme power is really
held by the legal representatives of the people; that the county
conventions and riotous assemblies of armed men shall no longer
be allowed to legislate, and to form an imperium in imperio ;
and that the protection of government shall yet be effectually
friended to every citizen of the commonwealth.

LUCIUS JUNIUS BRUTUS. 5

IN a free government, the reality of grievances is no kind
of justification of rebellion. It is hoped that our rulers will
act with dignity and wisdom ; that they will yield every thing
to reason, and refuse every thing to force ; that they will not
consider any burdens as a grievance, which it is the duty of
the people to bear ; but if the burden is too weighty for them
to endure, that they will lighten it ; and that they will not de
scend to the injustice and meanness of purchasing leave to hold
their authority, by sacrificing a part of the community to the
•villany and ignorance of the disaffected.

IT may be very proper to use arguments, to publish ad
dresses, and fulminate proclamations, against high treason:
but the man who expects to disperse a mob of a thousand men,
by ten thousand arguments, has certainly never been in one.
I have heard it remarked, that men are not to be reasoned out
of an opinion that they have not reasoned themselves into.
The case, though important, is simple. Government does not
subsist by making proselytes to sound reason, or by compro
mise and arbitration with its members ; but by the power of
the community compelling the obedience of individuals. If
that is not done, who will seek its protection, or fear its ven
geance. Government may prevail in the argument, and yet we
may lose the constitution.

WE have been told, that the hatchet of rebellion would be
buried, at least till another occasion shall call it forth, provided
all publick and private debts be abolished, or, in lieu of such
abolition, that a tender act be passed ; or an emission of paper
money, as a tender for all debts, should be made ; or that the
courts of justice should be shut, until all grievances are re
dressed.

HERE naturally arise two questions. In strict justice, ought
our rulers to adopt either of these measures ? And should they
adopt either, or all of them, will the energy of government be
restored, and the constitution be preserved ?

As to the first question, who is there that keeps company
with honest men, that will not give scope to the vehement
detestation that he bears the idea? Is there a rogue in the

6 , LUCIUS JUN1US BRUTUS.

state so hardened against shame and conscience, that he would
consent to be, alone, the author of either of those measures ?
It is to be hoped that the time is not yet arrived, when the
government of a free, new people is worse than the worst
man in it.

BUT should government resolve, that a measure which is
morally wrong, is politically right; that it is necessary to
sacrifice its friends and advocates to buy a truce from its foes ;
will those foes, having tasted the sweets of ruling, intermit
their enterprises, while there is a remnant of authority left in
the state to inflict punishments and to impose taxes, and that
authority is no longer formidable by the support of those men,
whose rights have been already surrendered ? Did cowardice,
did injustice, ever save a sinking state ? Did any man, by giv
ing up a portion of his just right, because he had not courage
to maintain it, ever save the residue ? The insolence of the
aggressor is usually proportioned to the tameness of the suf
ferer. Every individual has a right to tell his rulers, / am one
of the parties to the constitutional contract. I promised alle
giance^ and I require protection for my life and property. I am
ready to risk both in your defence. I am competent to make my
own contracts; and when they are -violated, to seek their inter
pretation and redress in the judicial courts. I never gave you a
right to ifiterpo.se in them. Without my consent, or a crime
committed, neither you, nor any individual, have a right to my
property. I refuse my consent; I am innocent of any crime. I
solemnly protest against the transfer of my property to my debtor.
An act making paper, or swine, a tender, is a confiscation of my
estate, and a breach of that compact, under which I thought I
had secured protection. If ye say that the people are distressed,
I ask, is the proposed relief less destressing? Relieve distress
from your own funds ; exercise the virtues of charity and com
passion at your own charge, as I do. Am I to lose my property,
and to be involved in distress, to relieve persons whom I never
saw, and who are unworthy of compassion, if they accept the
dishonest relief. If your virtues lead you to oppress me, what
am I to expect from your vices? But if ye will suffer my life to

LUCIUS JUNIUS BRUTUS. 7

depend ufion the mercy of the MOB, and my property upon their
opinion of the expediency of my keeping it, at least restore me
the right, which I renounced when I became a citizen, of vindicat
ing my own rights, and avenging my own injuries.

IN fine, the publick will be convinced, that the designs of
the rioters are subversive of government ; that they have know
ingly incurred the penalties of high treason ; that arguments
will not reach them ; will not be understood ; if understood,
will not convince them ; and after having gone such lengths,
conviction will not disarm them ; that, if government should
reason and deliberate, when they ought to act ; should choose
committees, publish addresses, and do nothing ; we shall see
our free constitution expire, the state of nature restored, and
our rank among savages taken somewhere below the Oneida
Indians. If government should do worse than nothing, should
make paper money or a tender act, all hopes of seeing the
people quiet, and property safe, are at an end. Such an act
would be the legal triumph of treason.

BUT before we make such a sacrifice, let us consider our
force to defend the state. And to direct that force, at the
head of the government is a magistrate, whose firmness, in
tegrity, and ability, are well known. The senate and house
have hitherto deserved the public confidence. Every man of
principle and property will give them his most zealous aid.
A select corps of militia may easily be formed, of such men
as may be trusted; the force of the United States may be
relied upon, if needed. The insurgents, without leaders, and
without resources, will claim the mercy of the government, as
soon as vigorous counsels are adopted.

Bur if the constitution must fall, let us discharge our duty^
and attempt its defence. Let us not furnish our enemies with a
triumph, nor the dishonoured page of history with evidence, THAT

IT WAS FORMED WITH TOO MUCH WISDOM TO BE VALUED,
AND REQUIRED TOO MVCH VIRTUE TO BE MAINTAINED BY
ITS MEMBERS.

CAMILLUS. N°. I.

First published in the Independent Chronicle, March 1, 1787.

Tliis, and the two following pieces, were written immediately after the suppression of Shays'*
insurrection, and before any measures had been taken either to guard against a repi tilion of.
similar disorders in our own state, or to strengthen the federal government. Two reflec
tions naturally arise in perusing these early productions of Mr. Ames's pen: that he was
one of the very first to discern the importance, and to urge the necessity of amending the
federal compact. He early saw the evils of the old confederation, and suggested in these
essays, before the calling of any convention, the basis of a federal system, in a remarkable
degree corresponding with the one which was afterwards adopted. It is also to l)e observed,
that he at this period foresaw the dangers, to which our liberty would be exposed ; that he
apprehended, (and well he might, from the events of that day) that those hazards were
chiefly ou the popular side, and tliat despotism would be much more likely to be introduced
by factious leaders, under the garb of patriotism, than by open, direct attacks. He manifests
his ardent zeal and anxiety for a republican form of government, and ridicules the idea of .'
the possibility of introducing a monarchy (except an absolute one) in our country. The
reader will notice the wonderful coincidence of this part of these early essays with a post-
humous piece, now for the first time published, entitled, " The Dangers of American
Liberty." These early essays render any explanation of the latter piece unnecessary, as
they obviously display the motives of the writer in thus enlarging upon, and depicturing
in gloomy colours, the dangers to which a popular government is liable. It was because
he loved the republick, and cherished it with unusual warmth and affection, that he was
perpetually pointing out its hazards. It was the timely admonition of a fond father to
secure the future happiness of a beloved child.

JL HE late events have been so interesting and so rapid, that
the publick mind has been confounded by the magnitude, and
oppressed with the variety of the reflections which result from
them. The season of the most useful observation for states
men and philosophers is not yet arrived. Their decisions are
made upon facts, as they appear in their simplicity, after
faction has ceased to distort, and enthusiasm to adorn them.
It is otherwise with the publick. Their judgment is formed
while the transactions are recent, while the rage of party gives
an acumen to their penetration, and an importance to their
discoveries, which, however, are soon cheerfully consigned to
oblivion. This seems, therefore, to be the time to reconsider
the state of parties, and to examine the opinions, which have
lately prevailed. Perhaps some fruit may be gathered from
our dear experience ; and we may, in some measure, succeed
in eradicating the destructive notions which the seditious have
infused into the people.

CAMlLLUS. 9

BUT experience, which makes individuals wise, sometimes
makes a publick mad : judging only by their feelings, disastrous
events are usually charged to the agency of bad men ; and in
the bustle, excited by their vindictive zeal, the precious lessons
of adversity are lost. It belongs to the sage politician to draw
from such events just maxims of policy, for the future benefit
of mankind ; and it belongs to mankind to keep these maxims
accumulating, by repeating the same blunders, and pursuing
the same phantoms, with equal ignorance, and equal ardour, to
the end of the world. This disposition is so obvious, that proof
cannot be needed. But if it be desired, it is furnished so
abundantly by the history of every nation, that it requires some
taste to select judiciously the most pertinent evidence. It is
most useful to advert to our own times.

IN spite of national beggary, paper money has still its advo
cates, and probably, of late, its martyrs. In spite of national
dishonour, the continental impost is still opposed with success.
Never did experience more completely demonstrate the ini
quity of the one, and the necessity of the other. But, in
defiance of demonstration, knaves will continue to proselyte
fools, and to keep a paper money faction alive. The fear of
their success has annihilated credit, as their actual success
would annihilate property. For many years we may expect,
that our federal government will be permitted to languish,
without the powers to extort commercial treaties from rival
states, or to establish a national revenue. All this is notorious.
It is the common language of the people, not excepting the
least informed. But it is vain to expect, that schemes plainly
unjust and absurd will, therefore, want advocates. Our late
experience forbids this confidence. Hitherto invention has not
equalled credulity; and the next pretence for rebellion will
more probably fail of rousing the disaffected to arms, because
it is not monstrous and absurd enough, than because its repug
nance to reason and common justice are palpable. The love
of novelty and the passion for the marvellous have ever made
the multitude mire than passive; they have invited imposture,
and drunk down deception like water. They will remain as

fa CAMILLUS.

blind, as credulous, as irritable as ever : ambitious men, and
those whose characters and fortunes are blasted, will not be
wanting to deceive and inflame them, openly, or by intrigue.
The opposition to federal measures, and the schemes of an
abolition of debts and an equal distribution of property, with
their subdivisions and branches, will be pursued with unremit
ting industry, till they involve us again in general confusion,
unless government, by system, energy, and honesty shall render
the laws from this period irresistibly supreme.

BUT success never fails to produce good humour, and to
procure for government a season of popularity. The publick
attention is now awake, and this is the favourable moment to
induce the people, by a retrospect of their errours, to renounce
them, to place confidence in their rulers, and in the permanency
and energy of our republick, and to unite in the patriotick
sentiment, that it is indispensably necessary to the general
prosperity, and to the very existence of government, that the
reins should be resumed and held with a firmer hand ; and that
palliatives and half expedients, and the projects of factious
ignorance, will not avail.

To a philosophick observer, indeed, the present confusion
will afford an inexhaustible fund of astonishment and concern.

HE will behold men, who have been civilized, returning to
barbarism, and threatening to become fiercer than the savage
children of nature, in proportion to the multitude of their
wants, and the cultivated violence of their passions. He will
see them weaiy of liberty, and unworthy of it ; arming their
sacrilegious hands against it, though it was bought with their
blood, and was once the darling pride of their hearts ; com
plaining of oppression, because the law, which has not forbidden,
has not also enforced cheating ; endeavouring to oppose society
against morality, and to associate freemen against freedom.
He will call this a chaos of morals and politicks, in which are
floating and conflicting, not the first principles and simple
elements, out of which systems may be formed, but the
fragments which have escaped the wreck of institutions and
opinions; not the embryo, but the ruins of a world. When he

CAMILLUS. 11

turns his eye from this landscape of barrenness and horrour,
so painful to the senses and the imagination, he will be led to
contemplate the rigorous wisdom -of Providence, which has so
palpably ordained, that the guilt of this rebellion shall be
punished by its folly.

IT is no less true than singular, that our government is not
supported by national prejudice. The people of every country,
but our own, though poor and oppressed, bear a patriotick
preference to their own laws and national character. They
will not suffer any one to revile them. The Briton, who sells
his vote, and is sold by his representative, glories in that
freedom, which is his birthright: without the smallest know
ledge of the principles and institutions, by which that freedom
is secured, he relies upon the fact, and takes rank of a French
man, whom he stigmatizes as a slave. To defend that rank,
his ardent valour is always devoted to his country. Every
Frenchman is equally prompt to maintain the glory of his
king. This prejudice is useful, and bears to just political
knowledge the relation of instinct to reason : its decisions are
quick ; its influence uniform and certain. It is the cement
of political union. The government of Turkey is doubtless
applauded at Constantinople. Tyranny receives the homage
of its dupes and its victims ; but liberty among us cannot
preserve the reverence of her sons. We have no national
character, no just pride in the glorious distinction of freemen,
which elevates a Massachusetts beggar above the despots of
Asia. We have, it is true, our portion of common follies ;
and we are not exceeded by any people in the zeal to maintain
them : but unfortunately they tend to vilify and to destroy the
publick liberty. The people have turned against their teachers
the doctrines, which were inculcated in order to effect the late
revolution. With more privileges and more information than
are possessed by the inhabitants of any other country, our
citizens, either because they have not learned the value of
those privileges by the loss of them, or by a comparison with
the nations subject to despotism, or because they have not been
accustomed to think that any change will be unfavourable to

12 M3AMILLUS.

them, appear to have no more attachment to the constitution
than to the rules of the Robinhood society. The admirers of
our government are beyond the Atlantick. It is extolled by
the sages of Europe, as giving the sanction of law to the
precepts of wisdom, and investing philanthropy with the power
to legislate for mankind. But far from contemplating its ex
cellence with partial fondness and implicit reverence, the
people arraign the institution of the senate, the exactness and
-multiplicity of the laws, and the constitution itself. Devoted
folly ! Will they continue to destroy the pillars of their security
till they are buried in the ruins !

CAMILLUS. N°. II.

IN oiir last speculation we expressed our surprise, that a
government, which is free almost to excess, should want the
love and veneration of that class of the people, whose rights
and privileges are so peculiarly connected with its preservation.
But it is to be considered, that they have once subverted and
again formed a constitution. Their complete success in both
attempts has extinguished all their ideas of the difficulty and
hazard of this operation ; and, accordingly, they seem to think
it as easy and safe to change the government as the repre
sentatives. We have already considered some of the causes,
which have produced this perversion of opinions. It is not
strange, that people with little information or leisure, with
violent prejudices and infinite credulity, should make indif
ferent politicians. But it remains a subject of amazement,
that the men of speculation and refinement have wandered still
more widely from the path of duty and good sense. It will
be amusing to review the extravagances of these framers of
hypotheses. They considered the contest with Britain, as
involving the fate of liberty and science. To animate and
recompense their sufferings and toils during the conflict, their
ardent enthusiasm had anticipated a system of government too

CAMILLUS. 13

pure for a state of imperfection. When they found, that, for
the first time in the history of man, a nation was allowed by
Providence to reduce to practice the schemes, which Plato and
Harrington had only sketched upon paper, they expected a
constitution which should be perfect and perpetual. Politicks
has produced enthusiasts as well as religion ; and in the theory
of our constitution they could trace their fancied model of
perfection. To the mind of the dreamer in speculation the
government was a phantom; and to adorn it his fancy had
stolen from the evening cloud the gaudiest of its hues: he
had dipped his pencil in the rainbow to portray a picture of
national felicity for admiration to gaze at. Then was the time
to tell of virtue being raised from the dungeon, where priests
and tyrants had confined her ; and that science had been courted
from the skies to meet her : then was the time to talk of
restoring the golden age, without being laughed at ; and many
seemed to believe that a political millennium was about to
commence.

BUT here end our heroes. When they quitted the theory
to attend to the administration of government, they descended
to vulgar prose. They found, that their admired plan of freedom
of election had produced a too faithful representation of the
electors ; and that something more, and something worse than
the publick wisdom and integrity were represented. They
often heard the unmeaning din of vulgar clamour excited to
make that odious which was right, and that popular which was
wrong.

THEY well knew, that the laws were made supreme, and
that politicks should have no passions. Yet it was soon per
ceived, that the legislators themselves sometimes felt, and too
often feared and obeyed, the sudden passions and ignorant
prejudices of their constituents. They expected a government
by laws, and not by men ; and they were chagrined to see, that
the feelings of the people were not only consulted in all
instances, but that in many they were allowed to legislate.
They had hoped, that the supreme power would prove, to all
legal purposes, omnipotent; and they were thrown into abso-

14 CAMILLUS.

lute despair, when they found, that not only individuals, but
conventions, and other bodies of men, unknown to the con
stitution, presumed to revise, and in effect to repeal, the acts
of the legislature. Besides, the first years of the millennium
had fallen far short of the expected felicity. But when a mad
people flew to arms ; when they found, that, in spite of the
indocile and impenetrable stupidity of the insurgents, there
was so much meaning in their wickedness ; and that the rea
sonings of great numbers, who espoused the cause of govern
ment, were almost as hostile as the violence of the other
party, they gave way to their spleen and disappointment, and
declared their conviction, that a republican government was
impracticable and absurd. They argued, as they said, from
facts as well as from principles, that such a government was
cursed with inherent inefficiency ; and that property was more
precarious than under a despot : a despot, they said, is a man,
and would fear the retaliation of his tyranny ; but an enthu-
siastick majority, steeled against compassion, and blind to
reason, are equally sheltered from shame and punishment.
The theory of the constitution has not escaped the havock of
their fastidious criticism : and they have seen, with com
placency, the stupid fury of Shays and his banditti employed
to introduce a more stable government, whose powers, they
predicted, would soon be lodged in the hands of 'abler men.
They raved about monarchy, as if we were ripe for it; and as
if we were willing to take from the plough-tail or dram-shop
some vociferous committee man, and to array him in royal
purple with all the splendour of a king of the Gypsies. So far
as we may argue from the sympathy, which fools and hnaves
have for their fellows, and from the fact of Luke Day's in
fluence in the rebellion, the presumption is, that our king,
whenever Providence in its wrath shall send us one, will be a.
blockhead or a rascal.

THE sons of science, who have adopted this reprehensible-
mode of reasoning, are, notwithstanding, the most sincere
lovers of their country : they are not the men to subvert

CAMILLUS. 15

empires. I will repeat for their consideration some observa
tions, which, though trite, are not unreasonable.

THE idea of a royal or aristocratical government for America,
is very absurd. It is repugnant to the genius, and totally
incompatible with the circumstances of our country. Our
interests and our choice have made us republicans. We are
too poor to maintain, and too proud to acknowledge, a king.
The spirit of finance and the ostentation of power would create
burdens ; these would produce the Shayses and the Wheelers.
The army must be augmented j discontent and oppression
would augment of consequence. But this is mere idle spe
culation ; for every honest man is surely bound to give his
support to the existing government, until its power becomes
intolerable. A change, though for the better, is always to be
deplored by the generation in which it is effected. Much is
lost, and more is hazarded. Our republick has not yet been
allowed a fair trial. The rebellion has called forth its powers,
and pointed out, most clearly, the means of giving it stability :
let us, therefore, cherish and defend our constitution; and
when time and wealth shall have corrupted it, our posterity
may perform the melancholy task of laying in human blood
and misery, as we have done, the foundations of another
government. We, who are now upon the stage, bear upon
our memories too deep an impression of the miseries of the
last revolution to think of attempting another.

IT is an Herculean labour to detail our political absurdities.
Since the days of Cromwell there has not been an instance of
such general infatuation. But while almost every tavern and
conversation circle were infested with the harangues of the
emissaries of treason, who without fear or measure reviled
the government, and without shame perverted the truth, the
opinions of the people at large were inevitably tainted with the
impurity of the source from which they were derived.

NOR was the agency of rebel emissaries the only cause of
popular errour. Where so much uneasiness prevailed against
government, they could not be pursuaded, that all was right.
The sufferers, many supposed, were the best able to decide

16 CAMILLUS.

upon the reality of their grievances ; and so many honest men
would not combine to deceive them. The general court, in
their last session, had given some colour to these presumptions,
and no small consequence to the party, by the minute attention
which they paid to their complaints, before they adopted mea
sures to suppress the rebellion, and by the laws of an unpre
cedented nature, enacted for their relief. Great numbers took
their fears for their counsellors, and thought it rashness to
contend against the invincible host of insurgents. Another
state tax was more dreaded by many, than the subversion of
government. Some said, very gravely, Shays himself is for
government ; while others, as absurdly, in the zeal of their
philanthropy against shedding blood, seemed wholly to forget,
that the right of self defence belongs to rulers as plainly as to
private men. In matters of etiquette and punctilio, the apostles
of mischief seemed agreed, that it was more proper for the
rulers of a great commonwealth, than for the leaders of a ragged
banditti, to make concessions. Disappointed men have hoped
to gratify their ambition or their revenge : the abolition of
public and private debts has been a favourite object with some :
others (such has been the extreme of frenzy) have contended
for an equal distribution of property : while the giddy multitude
have enjoyed the bustle of parties, and have found amusement
in destruction.

WITH what impressions will the impartial world peruse the
record of these facts ? They will be ready to affirm, with the
lunatick, that all the world had gone mad, except a few, who,
for their sobriety, were confined in Bedlam.

CAMILLUS. NO. III.

WE cannot look back, without terrour, upon the dangers
we have escaped. Our country has stood upon the verge of
tuin. Divided against itself; the ties of common union dis
solved ; all parties claiming authority, and refusing obedience ;

CAMILLUS. 17

«very hope of safety, except one, has been extinguished ; and
that has rested solely upon the prudence and firmness of our
rulers. Fortunately, they have been uninfected with the frenzy
of the times. They have done their duty, and have shewn
themselves the faithful guardians of liberty, as well as of power.
But much remains to do. Sedition, though intimidated, is
not disarmed. It is a period of adversity. We are in debt to
foreigners. Large sums are due internally. The taxes are
in arrears, and are accumulating. Manufactures are destitute
of materials, capital, and skill. Agriculture is despondent;
commerce bankrupt. These are themes for factious clamour,
more than sufficient to rekindle the rebellion. The combusti
bles are collected ; the mine is prepared ; the smallest spark
may again produce an explosion.

THIS is a crisis in our affairs, which requires all the wisdom
and energy of government: for every man of sense must be
convinced, that our disturbances have arisen more from the
want of power, than the abuse of it ; from the relaxation, and
almost annihilation of our federal government ; from the feeble,
unsystematick, temporising, inconstant character of our own
state ; from the derangement of our finances, the oppressive
absurdity of our mode of taxation ; and from the astonishing
enthusiasm and perversion of principles among the people.
It is not extraordinary that commotions have been excited. It
is strange, under the circumstances which we have been dis
cussing, that they did not appear sooner and terminate more
fatally. For let it be remarked, that a feeble government
produces more factions than an oppressive one : the want of
power first makes individuals legislators, and then rebels.
Where parents want authority, children are wanting in duty.
It is not possible to advance further in the same path. Here
the ways divide ; the one will conduct us first to anarchy, and
next to foreign or domestick tyranny ; the other, by the wise
and vigorous exertion of lawful authority, will lead to per
manent power, and general prosperity. I am no advocate for
despotism ; but I believe the probability to be much less of its
being introduced by the corruption of our rulers, than by the
3

13 CAM1LLUS.

delusion of the people. Experience has demonstrated that
new maxims of administration are indispensable. It i? not,
however, by sixpenny retrenchments of salaries ; nor by levying
war4 against any profession of men; nor by giving substance
and existence to the frothy essences and fantastick forms of
speculation ; nor is it by paper money, or an abolition of debts ;
nor by implicit submission to the insolence of beggarly con
ventions ; nor by the temporary expedients of little minds,
that authority can be rendered stable, and the people prosper
ous. A well digested, liberal, permanent system of policy is
required ; and, when adopted, must be supported, in spite of
faction, against every thing but amendment. The confedera
tion must be amended.

WHILE the bands of union are so loose, we are no more
entitled to the character of -a nation than the hordes of vaga
bond traitors. Reason has. ever condemned our paltry pre
judices upon this important subject : now that experience has
come in aid of reason, let us renounce them. For what is
there now to prevent our subjugation by foreign power, but
their contempt of the acquisition ? It is time to render the
federal head supreme in the United States. It is also time to
render the general court supreme in Massachusetts. Con
ventions have too long, and indeed too unequally, divided
power. Until this is effected, we cannot depend upon the
success of any plans of reformation. When this is done, we
ought to attempt the revival of publick and private credit.
With what decency can we pretend, that republicks are sup
ported by virtue, if we presume upon the foulest of all motives,
our own advantage, to release the obligation of contracts ?

SOME measures to provide for the common safety and
defence are necessary. It ought to be considered how far, and
in what manner, this may be accomplished, by perfecting the
discipline of the militia, or by calling them into actual service
by rotation. Taxation is a subject of the greatest nicety and
difficulty. When men of the first information have devised a
plan, experience only can give it the stamp of excellence. The
established mode is despicable in the extreme. It is arbitrary,

CAMILLUS. 19

uncertain, and unequal ; the smallest possible sum is taken
out of the pockets of the people, and it is kept the longest pos
sible time out of the hands of the commonwealth.

THESE important subjects deserve a distinct investigation.
Perhaps, at some future pe'riod, the writer may be seduced
by his zeal for the stability of the government, or by his
vanity, to attempt it.

BUT, in the mean time, he would warn his countrymen, that
our commonwealth stands upon its probation. If we make a
wise use of the advantages, which, with innumerable mischiefs,
the rebellion has afforded, our government may last. This is
the tide in our affairs, which, if taken at the flood, will lead to
glory. If we neglect it, ruin will be inevitable. It is in vain
to expect security in future merely from the general convic
tion, that government is necessary, and that treason is a crime.
It is vain to depend upon that virtue, which is said to sustain
a commonwealth. This is the high flown nonsense of philo
sophy, which experience daily refutes. It is still more absurd,
to expect to prevent commotions by conforming the laws to
popular humours, so that faction shall have nothing to complain
of, and folly nothing to ask for.

THERE is in nature, and there must be in the administration
of government, a fixed rule and standard of political conduct,
and that is, the greatest permanent happiness of the greatest
number of the people. If we substitute for these maxims
the wild projects, which fascinate the multitude in daily suc
cession, we may amuse ourselves with extolling the nice
proportions and splendid architecture of our republican fabrick.
But it will be no better than a magnificent temple of ice,
which the first south wind of sedition will demolish.

ANARCHY and government are both before us, and in our
choice. If we fall, we fall by our folly, not our fate. And
we shall evince to the astonished world, of how small influence
to produce national happiness are the fairest gifts of heaven,
a healthful climate, a fruitful soil, and inestimable laws, when
they are conferred upon a frivolous, perverse, and ungrateful
generation.

C 20 3

SPEECH

IN THE CONVENTION OF MASSACHUSETTS, ON BIENNIAL
ELECTIONS.

DELIVERED JANUARY, 1788.

A DO not regret, Mr. President, that we are not unanimous
upon this question. I do not consider the diversity of senti
ment which prevails, as an impediment in our way to the
discovery of truth. In order that we may think alike upon
this subject at last, we shall be compelled to discuss it by
ascending to the principles, upon which the doctrine of repre
sentation is grounded.

WITHOUT premeditation, in a situation so novel, and awed
by the respect which I feel for this venerable assembly, I
distrust extremely my own feelings, as well as my com
petency to prosecute this inquiry*. With the hope of an
indulgent hearing, I will attempt to proceed. I am sensible,
sir, that the doctrine of frequent elections has been sanctified
by antiquity ; and it is still more endeared to us by our recent
experience, and uniform habits of thinking. Gentlemen have
expressed their zealous partiality for it. They consider this as
a leading question in the debate, and that the merits of many
other parts of the constitution are involved in the decision. I
confess, sir, and I declare, that my zeal for frequent elections
is not inferiour to their own. I consider it as one of the first
securities for popular liberty, in which its veiy essence may
be supposed to reside. But how shall we make the best use
of this pledge and instrument of our safety ? A right principle,
carried to an extreme, becomes useless. It is apparent that.

* This was Mr. Ames's first speech in a state assembly.

SPEECH ON BIENNIAL ELECTIONS. 21

a delegation for a very short term, as for a single day, would
defeat the design of representation. The election in that case
would not seem to the people to be of any importance, and
the person elected would think as lightly of his appointment.
The other extreme is equally to be avoided. An election
for a very long term of years, or for life, would remove the
member too far from the controul of the people, would be (
dangerous to liberty, and in fact repugnant to the purposes
of the delegation. The truth, as usual, is placed somewhere
between the extremes, and I believe is included in this pro
position : the term of election must be so long, that the repre- ,
sentative may understand the interests of the people, and yet S
so limited, that his fidelity may be secured by a dependence
upon their approbation.

BEFORE I proceed to the application of this rule, I cannot |
forbear to premise some remarks upon two opinions which
have been suggested.

MUCH has been said about the people's divesting themselves
of power, when they delegate it to representatives ; and that
all representation is to their disadvantage, because it is but an
image, a copy, fainter and more imperfect than the original,
the people, in whom the light of power is primary and un-
borrowed, which is only reflected by their delegates. I cannot
agree to either of these opinions. The representation of the
people is something more than the people. I know, sir, but
one purpose, which the people can effect without delegation,
and that is, to destroy a government. That they cannot erect
a government, is evinced by our being thus assembled on their
behalf. The people must govern by a majority, with whom
all power resides. But how is the sense of this majority to be
obtained ? It has been said, that a pure democracy is the best
government for a small people, who may assemble in person.
It is of small consequence to discuss it, as it would be inap
plicable to the great countiy we inhabit. It may be of some
use in this argument, however, to consider, that it would be
very burdensome, subject to faction and violence : decisions

22 SPEECH ON

would often be made by surprise, in the precipitancy of passion,
by men who either understand nothing, or care nothing about
the subject ; or by interested men, or those who vote for their
own indemnity. It would be a government not by laws, but
by men. Such were the paltry democracies of Greece and
Asia Minor, so much extolled, and so often proposed as a
model for our imitation. I desire to 'be thankful, that our
people are not under any temptation to adopt the advice. I
think it will not be denied, that the people are gainers by the
election of representatives. They may destroy, but they can
not exercise, the powers of government in person ; but by
their servants, they govern : they do not renounce their power ;
they do not sacrifice their rights ; they become the true sove
reigns of the country, when they delegate that power, which
they cannot use themselves, to their trustees.

I KNOW, sir, that the people talk about the liberty of nature,
and assert, that we divest ourselves of a portion of it, when
we enter into society. This is declamation against matter of
fact. We cannot live without society ; and as to liberty, how
can I be said to enjoy that which another may take from me,
when he pleases. The liberty of one depends not so much
on the removal of all restraint from him, as on the due re
straint upon the liberty of others. Without such restraint,
there can be no liberty. Liberty is so far from being endanger
ed or destroyed by this, that it is extended and secured. For
I said, that we do not enjoy that which another may take from
us. But civil liberty cannot be taken from us, when any one
may please to invade it ; for we have the strength of the
society of our side.

I HOPE, sir, that these reflections will have some tendency
to remove the ill impressions, which are made by proposing
to divest the people of their power.

THAT they may never be divested of it, I repeat, that I am
in favour of frequent elections. They who commend annual
elections are desired to consider, that the question is, whether
biennial elections are a defect in the constitution : for it does

BIENNIAL ELECTIONS. 23

not follow, because annual elections are safe, that biennial are
dangerous ; for both may be good. Nor is there any foundation
for the fears of those who say, that, if we, who have been accus
tomed to choose for one year only, now extend it to two, the
next stride will be to five, or seven years, and the next for
term of life : for this article, with all its supposed defects, is
in favour of liberty. Being inserted in the constitution, it is
not subject to be repealed by law. We are sure, that it is the
worst of the case.

IT is a fence against ambitious encroachments, too high and
too strong to be passed : in this respect, we have greatly the
advantage of the people of England, and of all the world. The
law which limits their parliaments is liable to be repealed.

I WILL not defend this article by saying, that it was a matter
of compromise in the federal convention : it has my entire
approbation, as it stands. I think that we ought to prefer, in
this article, biennial elections to annual ; and my reasons for
this opinion are drawn from these sources.

FROM the extent of the country to bo governed.

THE objects of their legislation.

AND the more perfect security of our liberty.

IT seems obvious, that men, who are to collect in congress
from this great territory, perhaps from the bay of Fundy, or
from the banks of the Ohio, and the shore of Lake Superiour,
ought to have a longer term in office, than the delegates of a
single state, in their own legislature. It is not by riding post
to and from congress, that a man can acquire a just knowledge
of the true interests of the union. This term of election is
inapplicable to the state of a country, as large as Germany, or
as the Roman empire in the zenith of its power.

IF we consider the objects of their delegation, little doubt
will remain. It is admitted, that annual elections may be highly
fit for the state legislature. Every citizen grows up with a
knowledge of the local circumstances of the state : but the
business of the federal government will be very different.
The objects of their power are few and national. At least two

24 SPEECH ON

years in office will be necessary to enable a man to judge of
the trade and interests of states, which he never saw. The
time, I hope, will come, when this excellent country will
furnish food, and freedom, (which is better than food, which
is the food of the soul) for fifty millions of happy people.
Will any man say, that the national business can be under
stood in one year ?

BIENNIAL elections appear to me, sir, an essential security
to liberty. These are my reasons.

FACTION and enthusiasm are the instruments, by which
popular governments are destroyed. We need not talk oi
the power of an aristocracy. The people, when they lose their
liberties, are cheated out of them. They nourish factions in
their bosoms, which will subsist so long as abusing their
honest credulity shall be the means of acquiring power. A
democracy is a volcano, \; hich conceals the fiery materials of
its own destruction. These will produce an eruption, and
carry desolation in their way. The people always mean right,
and if time is allowed for reflection and information, they will
do right. I would not have the first wish, the momentary
impulse of the publick mind, become law. For it is not ahvays
the sense of the people, with whom, I admit, that all powrer
resides. On great questions, we first hear the loud clamours
of passion, artifice, and faction. I consider biennial elections
as a security, that the sober, second thought of the people
shall be law. There is a calm review of publick transac
tions, which is made by the citizens, who have families and
children, the pledges of their fidelity. To provide for popular
liberty, we must take care that measures shall not be adopted
without due deliberation. The member chosen for two years
will feel some independence in his seat : the factions of the
day will expire before the end of his term.

THE people will be proportionally attentive to the merits of
a candidate. Two years will afford opportunity to the mem
ber to deserve well of them, and they will require evidence
that he has done it.

BIENNIAL ELECTIONS. 25

BUT, sir, the representatives are the grand inquisition of the
union. They are by impeachment to bring great offenders
to justice. One year will not suffice to detect guilt, and to
pursue it to conviction : therefore it will escape, and the
balance of the two branches will be destroyed, and the people
oppressed with impunity. The senators will represent the
sovereignty of the states. The representatives are to i*epre-
sent the people. The offices ought to bear some proportion
in point of importance. This will be impossible, if they are
chosen for one year only.

WILL the people then blind the eyes of their own watch
men ? Will they bind the hands which are to hold the sword
for their defence ? Will they impair their own power, by an
unreasonable jealousy of themselves ?

FOR these reasons I am clearly of opinion, that the article
is entitled to our approbation as it stands : and as it has been
demanded, why annual elections were not preferred to biennial,
permit me to retort the question, and to inquire in my turn,
what reason can be given, why, if annual elections are good,
biennial elections are not better ?

C 26 ]

SPEECH ON MR. MADISON'S RESOLUTIONS.

OX the 3d of January, 1794, Mr. Madison, a member from Virginia, proposed to the house
of representatives of the United States a series of resolutions, to impose higher duties, and
lay greater restrictions, on the manufactures, products, and ships, and on particular
branches of trade, of a certain nation, or of nations therein described. In explanation of
his motives and views, he spoke of the security and extension of our commerce, as a prin
cipal object for which the federal government was formed. He urged the tendency ot
his resolutions to secure to us an equitable share of the carrying trade; that they would
enable other nations to enter into a competition with England for supplying us with
manufactures ; and in this way he insisted that our country could make her enemies feel
the extent of her power, by depriving those who manufactured for us of their bread. He
adverted to the measures enforced by a certain nation, contrary to our maritime rights;
and out of the proceeds of the extra impositions proposed, he recommended a reimburse
ment to our citizens of their losses arising from those measures. He maintained, that, if
the nation cannot protect the rights of its citizens, it ought to repay the damage ; and that
we are bound to obtain reparation for the Injustice of foreign nations to our citizens, or
to compensate them ourselves.

On the other hand, Mr. Ames thought, that, " whatever specious shew of advantage might
be given to the policy proposed in the resolutions, it would prove an aggravation and not a
renu-dy of any supposed or real evils in our commercial system." He considered the zeal
for unlimited freedom of commerce as affected and insincere. He thought it ridiculous in
this country to pretend, at this time, to change the general policy of nations ; and to begin
the abolit on of restrictions by enacting non-importation laws. Shutting up the best
markets for exports, and confining ourselves to the worst, for our imports, was peculiarly
inconsistent and absurd in those who profess to aim at the benefit of trade. To him it
appeared, that under the pretence of making trade better, it was to be annihilated ; that
it in'ght serve France, but would certainly injure us. He saw too plainly that our trade
was to wage war for our politicks, and to be used as the instrument of gratifying polit cal
resentments.

The way had been prepared for these resolutions by a report from Mr. Jefferson, as secretary
of state, on the same subject, which had been long laboured to give it the aspect which it
bore. Mr. Ames saw, or thought he saw, in these measures, the meditated overthrow of
the commercial prosperity of the United States, and especially of that part of then, wliosa
interests were particularly confided to bis care. With these impressions, he made the fol
lowing speech on the 27th of the same month, 1794.

JL HE question lies within this compass, is there any mea
sure proper to be adopted by congress, which will have the
effect to put our trade and navigation on a better footing ? If
there is, it is our undoubted right to adopt it ; if by right is
understood the/zower of self-government, which every indepen
dent nation possesses, and our own as completely as any other,
it is our duty also, for we are the depositaries and the guardians
of the interests of our constituents, which, on every considera-

MR. MADISON'S RESOLUTIONS. 27

tion, ought to be dear to us. I make no doubt they are so, and
that there is a disposition sufficiently ardent existing in this
body to co-operate in any measures for the advancement of
the common good. Indeed, so far as I can judge from any
knowledge I have of human nature, or of the prevailing spirit of
publick transactions, that sort of patriotism, which makes us
wish the general prosperity, when our private interest does not
happen to stand in the way, is no uncommon sentiment. In
truth, it is very like self-love, and not much less prevalent.
There is little occasion to excite and inflame it. It is, like
self-love, more apt to want intelligence than zeal. The danger
is always, that it will rush blindly into embarassments, which
a prudent spirit of inquiry might have prevented, but from
which it will scarcely find means to extricate us. While
therefore the right, the duty, and the inclination to advance
the trade and navigation of the United States, are acknowledged
and felt by us all, the choice of the proper means to that end is
a matter requiring the most circumspect inquiry, and the most
dispassionate judgment.

AFTER a debate has continued a long time, the subject very
frequently becomes tiresome before it is exhausted. Argu
ments, however solid, urged by different speakers, can scarcely
fail to render the discussion both complex and diffusive.
Without pretending to give to my arguments any other merit,
I shall aim at simplicity.

WE hear it declared, that the design of the resolutions is
to place our trade and navigation on a better footing. By better
footing, we are to understand a more profitable one. Profit is
a plain word, that cannot be misunderstood.

WE have, to speak in round numbers, twenty million dol
lars of exports annually. To have the trade of exports on a
'good footing, means nothing more than to sell them dear ; and
consequently the trade of import on a good footing, is to buy
cheap. To put them both on a better footing, is to sell dearer
and to buy cheaper than we do at present. If the effect of the
resolutions will be to cause our exports to be sold cheaper,

28 SPEECH ON

and our imports to be bought dearer, our trade will suffer at)
injury.

IT is hard to compute how great the injury would prove ;
for the first loss of value in the buying dear, and selling cheap,
is only the symptom and beginning of the evil, but by no means
the measure of it ; it will withdraw a great part of the nourish
ment, that now supplies the wonderful growth of our industry
and opulence. The difference may not amount to a great
proportion of the price of the articles, but it may reach the
greater part of the profit of the producer ; it may have effects
in this way which will be of the worst kind, by discouraging
the products of our land and industry. It is to this test I pro
pose to bring the resolutions on the table ; and if it shall clearly
appear, that they tend to cause our exports to be sold cheaper,
and our imports to be bought dearer, they cannot escape con
demnation. Whatever specious shew of advantage may be
given them, they deserve to be called aggravations of any real
or supposed evils in our commercial system, and not remedies.

I HAVE framed this statement of the question so as to com
prehend the whole subject of debate, and, at the same time, I
confess it was my design to exclude from consideration a
number of topicks, which appear to me totally irrelative to it.

THE best answer to many assertions we have heard is, to
admit them without proof. We are exhorted to assert our
natural rights ; to put trade on a respectable footing ; to
dictate terms of trade to other nations ; to engage in a contest
of self-denial, and, by that, and by shifting our commerce from
one country to another, to make our enemies feel the extent
of our power. This language, as it respects the proper sub
ject of discussion, means nothing, or what is worse. If our
trade is already on a profitable footing, it is on a respectable
one. Unless war be cur object, it is useless to inquire, what
are the dispositions of any government, with whose subjects
our merchants deal to the best advantage. While they will
smoke our tobacco, and eat our provisions, it is very immaterial,
both to the consumer and the producer, what are the politicks

MR. MADISON'S RESOLUTIONS. 29

t>f the two countries, excepting so far as their quarrels may
disturb the benefits of their mutual intercourse.

So far therefore as commerce is concerned, the inquiry is,
have we a good market.

THE good or bad state of our actual market is the question.
The actual market is every where more or less a restricted
one, and the natural order of things is displaced by the artificial.
Most nations, for reasons of which they alone are the rightful
judges, have regulated and restricted their intercourse, accord
ing to their views of safety and profit. We claim for ourselves
the same right, as the acts in our statute book, and the resolu
tions on the table evince, without holding ourselves accountable
to any other nation whatever. The right, which we properly
claim, and which we properly exercise, when we do it pru
dently and usefully for. our nation, is as well established, and
has been longer in use in the countries of which we complain,
than in our own. If their right is as good as that of congress,
to regulate and restrict, why do we talk of a strenuous exertion
of our force, and by dictating terms to nations, who are fancied
to be physically dependent on America, to change the policy of
nations ? It may be very true, that their policy is very wise and
good for themselves, but not as favourable for us as we could
make it, if we could legislate for both sides of the Atlantick.

THE extravagant despotism of this language accords very
ill with our power to give it effect, or with the affectation of
zeal for an unlimited freedom of commerce. Such a state of
absolute freedom of commerce never did exist, and it is very
much to be doubted whether it ever will. Were I invested
with the trust to legislate for mankind, it is very probable the
first act of my authority would be to throw all the restrictive
and prohibitory laws of trade into the fire ; the resolutions on
the table would not be spared. But if I were to do so, it is
probable I should have a quarrel on my hands with every
civilized nation. The Dutch would claim, the monopoly of the
spice trade, for which their ancestors passed their whole lives
in warfare. The Spaniards and Portuguese would be no less
obstinate. If we calculate what colony monopolies have cost

30 SPEECH ON

in wealth, in suffering, and in crimes, we shall say they were
dearly purchased. The English would plead for their navigation
act, not as a source of gain, but as an essential means of
securing their independence. So many interests would be dis
turbed, and so many lost, by a violent change from the existing
to an unknown order of things ; and the mutual relations of
nations, in respect to their power and wealth, would suffer such
a shock, that the idea must be allowed to be perfectly Utopian
and wild. But for this country to form the project of changing
the policy of nations, and to begin the abolition of restrictions
by restrictions of its own, is equally ridiculous and inconsistent.

LET every nation, that is really disposed to extend the
liberty of commerce, beware of rash and hasty schemes of
prohibition. In the affairs of trade, as in most others, we make
too many laws. We follow experience too little, and the visions
of theorists a great deal too much. Instead of listening to dis
courses on what the market ought to be, and what the schemes,
which always promise much' on paper, pretend to make it, let
us see what is the actual market for our exports and imports.
This will bring vague assertions and sanguine opinions to the
test of experience. That rage for theory and system, which
would entangle even practical truth in the web of the brain, is
the poison of public discussion. One fact is better than two
systems.

THE terms, on which our exports are received in the British
market, have been accurately examined by a gentleman from
South Carolina (Mr. Wm. Smith). Before his statement of
facts was made to the committee, it was urged, and with no lit
tle warmth, that the system of England indicated her inveteracy
towards this country, while that of France, springing from
disinterested affection, constituted a claim for gratitude and
self-denying measures of retribution.

SINCE that statement, however, that romantick style, which
is so ill adapted to the subject, has been changed. We
hear it insinuated, that the comparison of the footing of our
exports, in the markets of France and England, is of no im
portance ; that it is chiefly our object, to see how we may assist

MR. MADISON'S RESOLUTIONS. 31

and extend our commerce. This evasion of the force of the
statement, or rather this indirect admission of its authority,
establishes it. It will not be pretended, that it has been shaken
during the debate.

IT has been made to appear, beyond contradiction, that the
British market for our exports, taken in the aggregate, is a
good one ; that it is better than the French, and better than
any we have, and for many of our products the only one.

THE whole" amount of our exports to the British dominions,
in the year ending the 30th September, 1790, was nine mil
lions two hundred and forty six thousand six hundred and six
dollars.

BUT it will be more simple and satisfactory to confine the
inquiry to the articles following :

BREAD stuff, tobacco, rice, wood, the produce of the fisheries,
fish-oil, pot and pearl ash, salted meats, indigo, live animals,
flax-seed, naval stores, and iron.

THE amount of the before mentioned articles, exported in
that same year to the British dominions, was eight millions
four hundred and fifty seven thousand one hundred and seventy
three dollars.

WE have heard so much of restriction, of inimical and jea
lous probibitions to cramp our trade, it is natural to scrutinize
the British system, with the expectation of finding little besides
the effects of her selfish and angry policy.

YET of the great sum of nearly eight millions and an half,
the amount of the products before mentioned sold in her mar
kets, two articles only are dutied by way of restriction. Bread
stuff is dutied so high in the market of Great Britain, as, in
times of plenty, to exclude it, and this is done from the desire
to favour her own farmers. The mover of the resolutions
justified the exclusion of our bread stuff from the French
West-Indies by their permanent regulations, because, he said,
they were bound to prefer their own products to those even of
the United States. It would seem that the same apology would
tlo for England, in her home market. But what will do for the
vindication of one nation becomes invective against another.

32 SPEECH ON

The criminal nation however receives our bread stuff in the
West-Indies free, and excludes other foreign, so as to give our
producers the monopoly of the supply. This is no merit in the
judgment of the mover of the resolutions, because ii is a frag
ment of her old colony system. Notwithstanding the nature of
the duties on bread stuff in Great Britain, it has been clearly
shewn that she is a better customer for that article, in Europe,
than her neighbour France. The latter, in ordinary times, is
a poor customer for bread stuff, for the same reason that our
own country is, because she produces it herself, and therefore
France permits it to be imported, and the United States do the
like. Great Britain often wants the article, and then she receives
it ; no country can be expected to buy what it does not want.
The bread stuff sold in the European dominions of Britain, in
the year 1790, amounted to one million eighty seven thousand
eight hundred and forty dollars.

WHALE-OIL pays the heavy duty of eighteen pounds three
shillings sterling per ton ; yet spermaceti oil found a market
there to the value of eighty one thousand and forty eight
dollars.

THUS it appears, that of eight millions and an half, sold to
Great Britain and her dominions, only the value of one million
one hundred and sixty eight thousand dollars was under duty
of a restrictive nature. The bread stuff is hardly to be con
sidered as within the description ; yet, to give the argument its
full force, what is it ; about one eighth part is restricted. To
proceed with the residue :

Indigo to the amount of. 8 473,830

Live animals to the West-Indies 62,415

Flax-seed to Great Britain... 219,924

Total §756,169

THESE articles are received, duty free, which is a good foot
to the trade. Yet we find, good as it is, the bulk of our exports-
is received on even better terms :

MR. MADISON'S RESOLUTIONS. 33

Flour to the British West- Indies g 858,006

Grain 273,505

Free.... while other foreign flour and grain are pro
hibited.

Tobacco to Great Britain 2,754,493

Ditto to the West-Indies 22,816

One shilling and three pence sterling, duty ; three
shillings and six pence on other foreign tobacco.

In the West-Indies other foreign tobacco is pro
hibited.

Rice to Great Britain j 773,852

Seven shillings and four pence per cwt. duty ; j
eight shillings and ten pence on other foreign rice, j

To W^est-Indies 180,077

Other foreign rice prohibited.

Wood to Great Britain /. 240,174

Free. ...higher duties on other foreign.

To West-Indies | 382,48 1

Free. ...other foreign prohibited.

Pot and pearl ashes , 747,078

Free. ...two shillings and three pence on other
foreign, equal to ten dollars per ton.

Naval stores to Great Britain \ 190,670

Higher duties on other foreign. \

To West-Indies 6,162

Free. ...other foreign prohibited.

Iron to Great Britain 81,612

Free....duties on other foreign.

$6,510,926

THUS it appears, that nearly seven-eighths of tie exports
to the British dominions are received on terms of positive
favour. Foreigners, our rivals in the sale of these articles,
are either absolutely shut out of their market by prohibitions,
or discouraged in their competition with us by higher duties.
There is some restriction, it is admitted, but there is, to balance

it, a large amount received duty free ; and a half goes to the
5

34 SPEECH ON

account of privilege and favour. This is better than she treats
any other foreign nation. It is better, indeed, than she treats
her own subjects, because they are by this means deprived of
a free and open market. It is better than our footing with any
nation, with whom we have treaties. It has been demonstra
tively shewn, that it is better than the footing, on which France
receives either the like articles, or the aggregate of our pro
ducts. The best proof in the world is, that they are not sent to
France. The merchants will find out the best market sooner
than we shall.

*THE footing of our exports, under the British system, is
better thin that of their exports to the United States, under
our systen. Nay, it is better than the freedom of commerce,
which is one of the visions for which our solid prosperity is
to be hazarded ; for, suppose we could batter down her system
of prohibitions and restrictions, it would be gaining a loss ; one-
eighth is retricted, and more than six-eighths has restrictions
in its favou. It is as plain as figures can make it, that, if a
state of fre;dom for our exports is at par, the present system
raises their, in point of privilege, above par. To suppose that
we can terify them by these resolutions, to abolish their
restrictions and at the same time to maintain in our favour
their duties, to exclude other foreigners from their market, is
too absurd to be refuted.

WE h^-e heard, that the market of France is the great
centre of iur interests ; we are to look to her, and not to Eng
land, for advantages, being, 'as the style of theory is, our .best
customer jnd best friend, shewing to our trade particular
favour and privilege ; while England manifests in her system
such narrot and selfish views. It is strange to remark such a
pointed refutation of assertions and opinions by facts. The
amount senl to France herself is very trivial. Either our mer
chants are jgnorant of the best markets, or those which they
prefer are tlie best ; and if the English markets, in spite of the
alleged ill ulage, are still preferred to the French, it is a proof
of the superlour advantages of the former over the latter. The
arguments T have adverted to oblige those who urge them

MR. MADISON'S RESOLUTIONS 35

to make a greater difference in favour of the English than
the true state of facts will warrant. Indeed, if they persist
in their arguments, they are bound to deny their own conclu
sions. They are bound to admit this position : if France
receives little of such of our products as Great Britain takes
on terms of privilege and favour, because of that favour, it
allows the value of that favoured footing. If France takes
little of our articles, because she does not want them, it shews
the absurdity of looking to her as the best customer.

IT may be sdd, and truly, that Great Britain regards
only her own interest in these arrangements ; so much the
better. If it is her interest to afford to our commerce more
encouragement than France gives ; if she does this, when she
is inveterate against us, as it is alleged, and when we are
indulging an avowed hatred towards her, and partiality towards
France, it shews that we have very solid ground to rely on.
Her interest is, according to this statement, stronger than our
passions, stronger than her own, and is the more to be depend
ed on, as it cannot be put to any more trying experiment in
future. The good will and friendship of nations are hollow
foundations to build our systems upon. Mutual interest is a
bottom of rock : the fervour of transient sentiments is not
better than straw or stubble. Some gentlemen have lamented
this distrust of any relation between nations, except an interest
ed one ; but the substitution of any other principle could
produce little else than the hypocrisy of sentiment, and an
instability of affairs. It would be relying on what is not stable,
instead of wrhat is ; it would introduce into politicks the jargon
of romance. It is in this sense, and this only, that the word
f ivour is used : a state of things, so arranged as to produce
our profit and advantage, though intended by Great-Britain
merely for her own. The disposition of a nation is immate
rial ; the fact, that \ve profit by their system, cannot be so to this
discussion.

THE next point is, to consider, whether our imports are on
a good footing, or, in other words, whether we are in a situa
tion to buy what we have occasion for at a cheap rate. In this

36 SPEECH ON

view, the systems of the commercial nations are not to be com
plained of, as all are desirous of selling the products of their
labour. Great Britain is not censured in this respect. The
objection is rather of the opposite kind, that we buy too cheap,
and therefore consume too much ; and that we take not only
as much as we can pay for, but to the extent of our credit also.
There is less freedom of importation, however, from the West-
Indies. In this respect, France is more restrictive than Eng
land ; for the former allows the exportation to us of only rum
and molasses, while England admits that of sugar, coffee, and
other principal West-India products. Yet, even here, when
the preference seems to be decidedly due to the British sys
tem, occasion is taken to extol that of the French. We are
told that they sell us the chief part of the molasses, which is
consumed, or manufactured into rum ; and that a great and
truly important branch, the distillery, is kept up by their liber
ality in furnishing the raw material. There is at every step
matter to confirm the remark, that nations have framed their
regulations to suit their own interests, not ours. France is a
great brandy manufacturer ; she will not admit rum, therefore,
even from her own islands, because it would supplant the con
sumption of brandy. The molasses was, for that reason, some
years ago of no value in her islands, and was not even saved in
casks. But the demand from our country soon raised its va
lue. The policy of England has been equally selfish. The
molasses is distilled in her islands, because she has no manu
facture of brandy to suffer by its sale.

A QUESTION remains respecting the state of our navigation.
If we pay no regard to the regulations of foreign nations, and
ask, whether this valuable branch of our industry and capital
is in a distressed and sickly state, we shall find it is in a strong
and flourishing condition. If the quantity of shipping was
declining, if it was unemployed, even at low freight, I should
say, it must be sustained and encouraged. No such thing is
asserted. Seamen's wages are high, freights are high, and
American bottoms in full employment. But the complaint is,
our vessels are not permitted to go to the British West-Indies.

MR. MADISON'S RESOLUTIONS. 37

It is even affirmed, that no civilized country treats us so ill in
that respect. Spain and Portugal prohibit the traffick to their
possessions, not only in our vessels, but in their own, which,
according to the style of the resolutions, is worse treatment
than we meet with from the British. It is also asserted, and
on as bad ground, that our vessels are excluded from most of
the British markets.

THIS is not true in any sense. We are admitted into the
greater number of her ports, in our own vessels ; and by far
the greater value of our exports is sold in British ports, into
which our vessels are received, not only on a good footing,
compared with other foreigners, but on terms of positive
favour, on better terms than British vessels are admitted into
our own ports. We are not subject to the alien duties ; and
the light money, Sec. of 1*. 9d. sterling per ton is less than
our foreign tonnage duty, not to mention the ten per cent, on
the duties on goods in foreign bottoms.

BUT in the port of London our vessels are received free.
It is for the unprejudiced mind to compare these facts with
the assertions we have heard so confidently and so feelingly
made by the mover of the resolutions, that we are excluded
from most of their ports, and that no civilized nation treats our
vessels so ill as the British.

THE tonnage of the vessels, employed between Great Britain
and her dependencies and the United States, is called two hun
dred and twenty thousand ; and the whole of this is represented as
our just right. The same gentleman speaks of our natural right
to the carriage of our own articles, and that we may and ought
to insist upon our equitable share. Yet, soon after, he uses
the language of monopoly, and represents the whole carriage
of imports and exports as the proper object of our efforts, and
all that others carry as a clear loss to us. If an equitable share
of the carriage means half, we have it already, and more, and
our proportion is rapidly increasing. If any thing is meant
by the natural right of carriage, one would imagine that it
belongs to him, whoever he may be, who, having bought our
produce, and made himself the gwner, thirvk.s proper to take

S8 SPEECH ON

it with him to his own country. It is neither our policy nor
our design to check the sale of our produce. We invite every
description of purchasers, because we expect to sell dearest,
when the number and competition of the buyers is the greatest.
For this reason the total exclusion of foreigners and their ves
sels from the purchase and carriage of our exports is an ad
vantage, in respect to navigation, which has disadvantage to
balance it, in respect to the price of produce. It is with this
reserve we ought to receive the remark, that the carriage of
our exports should be our object, rather than that of our im
ports. By going with our vessels into foreign ports we buy
our imports in the best market. By giving a steady and mo
derate encouragement to our own shipping, without pretending
violently to interrupt the course of business, experience will
soon establish that order of things, which is most beneficial to
the exporter, the importer, and the ship owner. The best
interest of agriculture is the true interest of trade.

IN a trade, mutually beneficial, it is strangely absurd to con-
aider the gain of others as our loss. Admitting it however for
argument sake, yet it should be noticed, that the loss of two
hundred and twenty thousand tons of shipping is computed
according to the apparent tonnage. Our vessels not being
allowed to go to the British West-Indies, their vessels, mak
ing frequent voyages, appear in the entries over and over
again. In the trade to the European dominions of Great Britain,
the distance being greater, our vessels are not so often entered.
Both these circumstances give a false shew to the amount of
British tonnage, compared with the American. It is however
very pleasing to the mind, to see that our tonnage exceeds the
British in the European trade. For various reasons, some of
which will be mentioned hereafter, the tonnage in the West-
India trade is not the proper subject of calculation. In the
European comparison, we have more tonnage in the British
than in the French commerce ; it is indeed more than four to
one.

THE great quantity of British tonnage employed in our
trade is also, in a great measure, owing to the large capitals

MR. MADISON'S RESOLUTIONS. 5,9

»F their merchants, employed in the buying and exporting our
productions. If we would banish the ships, we must strike at
the root, and banish the capital. And this, before we have
capital of our own grown up to replace it, would be an opera
tion of no little violence and injury, to our southern brethren
especially.

INDEPENDENTLY of this circumstance, Great Britain is an
active and intelligent rival in the navigation line. Her ships
are dearer, and the provisioning her seamen is perhaps rather
dearer than ours : on the other hand, the rate of interest is lower
in England, and so are seamen's wages. It would be impro
per, therefore, to consider the amount of British tonnage in
our trade, as a proof of a bad state of things, arising either
from the restrictions of that government, or the negligence or
timidity of this. We are to charge it to causes, which are
more connected with the natural competition of capital and
industry, causes, which in fact retarded the growth of our ship
ping more, when we were colonies, and our ships were free,
than since the adoption of the present government.

IT has been said with emphasis, that the constitution grew
out of the complaints of the nation respecting commerce,
especially that with the British dominions. What was then
lamented by our patriots ! Feebleness of the publick counsels ;
the shadow of union, and scarcely the shadow of publick credit ;
every where despondence, the pressure of evils, not only great,
but portentous of civil distractions. These were the grievances ;
and what more was then desired than their remedies ? Is it
possible to survey this prosperous country and to assert that
they have been delayed ? Trade flourishes on our wharves,
although it droops in speeches. Manufactures have risen under'
the v shade of protecting duties from almost nothing to such a
state, that we are even told we can depend on the doniestick sup
ply, if the foreign should cease. The fisheries, which we found
in decline, are in the most vigorous growth : the whale fishery*
which our allies would have transferred to Dunkirk, now ex
tends over the whole ocean. To that hardy race of men the
sea is but a park for hunting its monsters ; such is their
activity, the deepest abysses scarcely afford to their prey a

40 SPEECH ON

hiding place. Look around, and see how the frontier circle
widens, how the interiour improves, and let it be repeated, that
the hopes of the people, when they formed this constitution,
have been frustrated.

BUT il* it should happen, that our prejudices prove stronger
than our senses ; if it should be believed, that our farmers and
merchants see their products and ships and wharves going to
decay together, and they are ignorant or silent on their own
ruin ; stiil the publick documents would not disclose so -alarm
ing a state of our affairs. Our imports are obtained so plenti
fully and cheaply, that one of the avowed objects of the reso
lutions is, to make them scarcer and dearer. Our exports,
so far from languishing, have increased two millions of dollars
in a year. Our navigation is found to be augmented beyond the
most sanguine expectation. We hear of the vast advantage
the English derived from the navigation act ; and we are asked
in a tone of accusation, shall we sit still and do nothing ? Who
is bold enough to say, congress has done nothing for the
encouragement of American navigation ? To counteract the
navigation act, we have laid on British a higher tonnage than
our own vessels pay in their ports ; and what is much more effec
tual, we have imposed ten per cent, on the duties, when the
dutied articles are borne in foreign bottoms. We have also
made the coasting trade a monopoly to our own vessels. Let
those, who have asserted that this is nothing, compare facts
with the regulations which produced them.
Tonnage. Tons.

American, 1789 297,468 Excess of American

Foreign 265,116 tonnage.

32,352

American, 1790 347,663

Foreign 258,916

88,747
American, 1791 363,810

Foreign 240,799

123,011
American, 1792 415,330

Foreign 244,263

171,067

MR. MADISON'S RESOLUTIONS. 41

Is not this increase of American shipping rapid enough.?
Many persons say it is too rapid, and attracts too much capital
for the circumstances of the country. I cannot readily per
suade myself to think so valuable a branch of employment
thrives too fast. But a steady and sure encouragement is more
to be relied on than violent methods of forcing its growth. It
is not clear, that the quantity of our navigation, including our
coasting and fishing vessels, is less in proportion to those of
that nation : in that computation we shall probably find, that
we are already more a navigating people than the English.

As this is a growing country, we have the most stable ground
of dependence on the corresponding growth of our navigation :
and that the increasing demand for shipping will rather fall to
the share of Americans than foreigners, is not to be denied.
We did expect this from the nature of cur own laws ; we have
been confirmed in it by experience ; and we know that an
American bottom is actually preferred to a foreign one. In
cases where one partner is an American, and another a foreigner,
the ship is made an American bottom. A fact of this kind
overthrows a whole theoiy of reasoning on the necessity of
further restrictions. It shows, that the work of restriction is
already done.

IF we take the aggregate view of our commercial interests,
we shall find much more occasion for satisfaction, and even
exultation, than complaint, and none for despondence. It would
be too bold to say, that our condition is so eligible there is
nothing to be wished. Neither the order of nature, nor the
allotments of Providence, afford perfect content ; and it would
be absurd to expect in our politicks what is denied in the la\vs
of our being. The nations, with whom we have intercourse,
have, without exception, more or less restricted their com
merce. They have framed their regulations to suit their real
or fancied interests. The code of France is as full of restric
tions as that of England. We have regulations of our own ;
and they are unlike those of any other country. Inasmuch as
the interest and circumstances of nations vary so essentially,
the project of an exact reciprocity on our part is a vision.

42 SPEECH ON

What we desire is, to have, not an exact reciprocity, but an
intercourse of mutual benefit and convenience.

IT has scarcely been so much as insinuated, that the change
contemplated will be a profitable one ; that it will enable us to
sell dearer and to buy cheaper : on the contrary, we are invited
to submit to the hazards and losses of a conflict with our cus
tomers ; to engage in a contest of self-denial. For what — to
obtain better markets ? No such thing ; but to shut up forever,
if possible, the best market we have for our exports, and to
confine ourselves to the dearest and scarcest markets for our
imports. And this is to be done for the benefit of trade, or,
as it is sometimes more correctly said, for the benefit of
France. This language is not a little inconsistent and strange
from those, who recommend a non-importation agreement,
and who think we should even renounce the sea and devote
ourselves to agriculture. Thus, to make our trade more free,
it is to be embarrassed, and violently shifted from one country
to another, not according to the interest of the merchants, but
the visionary theories and capricious rashness of the legislators.
To make trade better, it is to be made nothing.

So far as commerce and navigation are regarded, the pre
tences for this contest are confined to two. We are not allowed
to carry manufactured articles to Great Britain, nor any pro
ducts, except of our own growth ; and we are not permitted to
go, with our own vessels, to the West-Indies. The former,
which is a provision of the navigation act, is of little importance
to our interests, as our trade is chiefly a direct one, our shipping
not being equal to the carrying for other nations ; and our
manufactured articles are not furnished in quantities for ex
portation, and, if- they were, Great Britain would not be a cus
tomer. So far, therefore, the restriction is rather nominal
than real.

THE exclusion of our vessels from the West-Indies is of
more importance. When we propose to make an effort to
force a privilege from Great Britain, which she is loath to
yield to us, it is necessary to compare the value of the object
with the effort, and, above all, to calculate very warily the

MR. MADISON'S RESOLUTIONS. 43

probability of success. A trivial thing deserves not a great
exertion ; much less ought we to stake a very great good in
possession for a slight chance of a less good. The carriage
of one half the exports and imports to and from the British
West-Indies, is the object to be contended for. Our whole
exports to Great Britain are to be hazarded. We sell on terms,
of privilege and positive favour, as it has been abundantly
shewn, near seven millions to the dominions of Great Britain.
We are to risk the privilege in this great amount — for what I
For the freight only of one half the British West-India trade
with the United States. It belongs to commercial men to
calculate the entire value of the freight alluded to. But it
cannot bear much proportion to the amount of seven millions.
Besides, if we are denied the privilege of carrying our articles
in our vessels to the islands, we are on a footing of privilege
in the sale of them. We have one privilege, if not two. It
is readily admitted, that it is a desirable tiling, to have our
vessels allowed to go to the English islands ; but the value of
the object has its limits, and we go unquestionably beyond
them, when we throw our whole exports into confusion, and
run the risk of losing our best markets, for the sake of forcing
a permission to carry our own products to one of those mar
kets : in which, too, it should be noticed, we sell much less
than we do to Great Britain herself. If to this we add, that
the success of the contest is grounded on the sanguine and
passionate hypothesis of our being able to starve the islanders,
which, on trial, may prove false, and which our being in
volved in the war would overthrow at once, we may conclude,
without going further into the discussion, that prudence for
bids our engaging in the hazards of a commercial .war ; that
great things should not be staked against such as are, of much
less value ; that what we possess should not be risked for what
we desire, without great odds in our favour j still less, if the
chance is infinitely against us.

IF these considerations should fail of their effect, it will bo
necessary to go into an examination of the tendency of the

44, SPEECH OX

system of discrimination to redress and avenge all our wrongs,
and to realize all our hopes.

IT has been avowed, that we are to look to France, not to
England, for advantages in trade ; we are to shew our spirit,
and to manifest towards those who are called enemies the
spirit of enmity, and towards those we call friends something
more than passive good will. We are to take active measures
to force trade out of its accustomed channels, and to shift it by
such means from England to France. The care of the con
cerns of the French manufacturers may be left perhaps as
well in the hands of the convention, as to be usurped into our
own. However our zeal might engage us to interpose, our
duty to our own immediate constituents demands all our atten
tion. To volunteer it, in order to excite competition in one
foreign nation to supplant another, is a very strange business ;
and to do it, as it has been irresistibly proved it will happen, at
the charge and cost of our own citizens, is a thing equally
beyond all justification and all example. What is it but to
tax our own people for a time, perhaps for a long time, in
order that the French may at last sell as cheap as the English :
cheaper they cannot, nor is it so much as pretended. The
tax will be a loss to us, and the fancied tendency of it not a
gain to this country in the event, but to France. We shall
pay more for a time, and in the end pay no less ; for no object
but that one nation may receive our money, instead of the
other. If this is generous towards France, it is not just to
America. It is sacrificing what we owe to our constituents to
what we pretend to feel towards strangers. We have indeed
heard a very ardent profession of gratitude to that nation, and
infinite reliance seems to be placed on her readiness to sacrifice
her interest to ours. The story of this generous strife should
be left to ornament fiction. This is not the form nor the
occasion to discharge our obligations of any sort to any foreign
nation : it concerns not our feelings but our interests ; yet the
debate has often soared high above the smoke of business into
the epick region. The market for tobacco, tar, turpentine.

MR. MADISON'S RESOLUTIONS. 45

and pitch has become matter of sentiment, and given occasion
alternately to rouse our courage and our gratitude.

IF, instead of hexameters, we prefer discussing our relation
to foreign nations in the common language, we shall not find,
that we are bound by treaty to establish a preference in favour
of the French. The treaty is founded on a professed reciprocity,
favour for favour. Why is the principle of treaty or no treaty-
made so essential, when the favour we are going to give is an
act of supererogation ? It is not expected by one of the nations
in treaty : for Holland has declared in her treaty with us, that
such preferences are the fruitful source of animosity, embar
rassment and war. The French have set no such example.
They discriminate, in their late navigation act, not as we are
exhorted to do, between nations in treaty and not in treaty, but
between nations at war and not at war with them ; so that,
when peace takes place, England will stand by that act on the
same ground with ourselves. If we expect by giving favour
to get favour in return, it is improper to make a law. The
business belongs to the executive, in whose hands the consti
tution has placed the power of dealing with foreign nations.
It is singular to negociate legislatively ; to make by a law half
a bargain, expecting a French law would make the other.
The footing of treaty or no treaty is different from the ground
taken by the mover himself in supporting his system. He has
said favour for favour was principle : nations not in treaty grant
favours, those in treaty restrict our trade. Yet the principle
of discriminating in favour of nations in treaty, is not only
inconsistent with the declared doctrine of the mover and with
facts, but it is inconsistent with itself. Nations not in treaty
are so very unequally operated upon by the resolutions, it is
absurd to refer them to one principle. Spain and Portugal
have no treaties with us, and are not disposed to have : Spain
would not accede to the treaty of commerce between us and
France, though she was invited : Portugal would not sign a
treaty after it had been discussed and signed on our part.
They have few ships or manufactures, and do not feed their
colonies from us : of course there is little for the discrimina-

46 SPEECH OX

tion to operate upon. The operation on nations in treaty is
equally a satire on the principle of discrimination. In Sweden,
with whom we have a treaty, duties rise higher if borne in our
bottoms, than in her own France does the like, in respect to
tobacco, two and a half livres the quintal, which in effect pro
hibits our vessels to freight tobacco. The mover has, some
what unluckily, proposed to except from this system nations
having no navigation acts ; in which case France would become
the subject of unfriendly discrimination, as the house have
been informed since the debate began, that she has passed
such acts.

I MIGHT remark on the disposition of England to settle a
commercial treaty, and the known desire of the marquis of
Lansdown (then prime minister), in 1783, to form such a one
on the most liberal principles. The history of that business,
and the causes which prevented its conclusion, ought to be
made known to the publick. The powers given to our minis
ters were revoked, and yet we hear, that no such disposition
on the part of Great Britain has existed. The declaration of
Mr. Pitt in parliament, in June, 1792, as \vell as the corres
pondence with Mr. Hammond, shew a desire to enter upon a
negociation. The statement of the report of the secretary of
state, on the privileges and restrictions of our commerce, that
Great Britain has shewn no inclination to meddle with the
subject, seems to be incorrect.

THE expected operation of the resolutions on different
nations, is obvious, and I need not examine their supposed
tendency to dispose Great Britain to settle an equitable treaty
with this countiy ; but I ask, whether those, who hold such
language towards that nation as I have heard, can be supposed
to desire a treaty and friendly connexion. It seems to be
thought a merit to express hatred : it is common and natural
to desire to annoy and to crush those whom we hate, but it is
somewhat singular to pretend, that the design of our anger is
to embrace them.

THE tendency of angry measures to friendly dispositions and
arrangements is not obvious. We affect to believe, that >te

MR. MADISON'S RESOLUTIONS. 4JT

shall quarrel ourselves into their good will : we shall beat a
new path to peace and friendship with Great Britain, one that
is grown up with thorns, and lined with men-traps and spring-
guns. It should be called the war path.

To do justice to the subject, its promised advantages should
be examined. Exciting the competition of the French is to
prove an advantage to this country, by opening a new market
with that nation. This is scarcely intelligible. If it means
any thing, it is an admission, that their market is not a good
one, or that they have not taken measures to favour our traffick
with them. In either case our system is absurd. The balance
of trade is against us, and in favour of England. But the reso
lutions can only aggravate that evil, for, by compelling us to
buy dearer and sell cheaper, the balance will be turned still
more against our country. Neither is the supply from France
less the aliment of luxury, than that from England. There,
excess of credit is an evil, which we pretend to cure by check
ing the natural growth of our own capital, which is the un
doubted tendency of restraining trade : the progress of the
remedy is thus delayed. If we will trade, there must be
capital. It is best to have it of our own ; if we have it not, we
must depend on credit. Wealth springs from the profits of
employment, and the best writers on the subject establish it,
that employment is in proportion to the capital, that is to excite
and reward it. To strike off credit, which is the substitute for
capital, if it were possible to do it, would so far stop employ
ment. Fortunately it is not possible ; the activity of individual
industry eludes the misjudging power of governments. The
resolutions would, in effect, increase the demand for credit,
as our products selling for less in a new market, and our
imports being bought dearer, there would be less money and
more need of it. Necessity would produce credit. Where
the laws are strict, it will soon find its proper level ; the uses
of credit will remain, and the evil will disappear.

BUT the whole theory of balances of trade, of helping it by
restraint, and protecting it by systems of prohibition and restric
tion against foreign nations, as well as the remedy for credit, arc

48 SPEECH ON

among the exploded dogmas, which are equally refuted by the
maxims of science and the authority of time. Many such topicks
have been advanced, which were known to exist as prejudices,
but were not expected as arguments. It seems to be believed,
that the liberty of commerce is of some value. Although there
are restrictions on one side, there will be some liberty left : coun
ter restrictions, by diminishing that liberty, are in their nature
aggravations and not remedies. We complain of the British
restrictions as of a millstone : our own system will be another ;
so that our trade may hope to be situated between the upper
and the nether millstone.

ON the whole, the resolutions contain two great principles :
to controul trade by law, instead of leaving it to the better
management of the merchants ; and the principle of a sumptu
ary law. To play the tyrant in the counting-house, and in
directing the private expenses of our citizens, are employ
ments equally unworthy of discussion.

BESIDES the advantages of the system, we have been called
to another view of it, which seems to have less connection
with the merits of the discussion. The acts of states, and the
votes of publick bodies, before the constitution was adopted,
and the votes of the house since, have been stated as grounds
for our assent to this measure at this time. To help our own
trade, to repel any real or supposed attack upon it, cannot fail
to prepossess the mind ; accordingly the first feelings of every
man yield to this proposition. But the sober judgment on the
tendency and reasonableness of the intermeddling of govern
ment often does, and probably ought still oftener to change our
impressions. On a second view of the question, the man, who
voted formerly for restrictions, may say, much has been done
under the new constitution, and the good effects are yet mak
ing progress. The necessity of measures of counter restriction
will appear to him much less urgent, and their efficacy in the
present turbulent state of Europe infinitely less to be relied on.
Far from being inconsistent in his conduct, consistency will
forbid his pressing the experiment of his principle under cir
cumstances, which baffle the hopes of its success. But if so

MR. MADISON'S RESOLUTIONS. 49

much stress is laid on former opinions, in favour of this mea
sure, how happens it that there is so little on that, which now
appears against it ? Not one merchant has spoken in favour of
it in this body ; not one navigating or commercial state has
patronised it.

IT is necessary to consider the dependence of the British
West-India islands on our supplies. I admit, that they cannot
draw them so well, and so cheap, from any other quarter ; but
this is not the point. Are they physically dependent ? Can we
starve them ; and may we reasonably expect, thus, to dictate to
Great Britain a free admission of our vessels into her islands ?
A few details will prove the negative. Beef and pork sent from
the now United States to the British West-Indies, 1773, four
teen thousand nine hundred and ninety three barrels. In the
war time, 1780, ditto from England, seventeen thousand seven
hundred and ninety five : at the end of the war, 1783, six
teen thousand five hundred and twenty six. Ireland exported,
on an average of seven years prior to 1777, two hundred and
fifty thousand barrels. Salted fish the English take in abund
ance, and prohibit its importation from us. Butter and cheese
from England and Ireland are but lately banished even from
our markets. Exports from the now United States, 1773,
horses two thousand seven hundred and sixty eight, cattle one
thousand two hundred and three, sheep and hogs five thousand
three hundred and twenty. Twenty two years prior to 1791,
were exported from England to all ports, twenty nine thousand
one hundred and thirty one horses. Ireland, on an average of
seven years to 1777, exported four thousand and forty live
stock, exclusive of hogs. The coast of Barbary, the Cape de
Verds, &c. supply sheep and cattle. The islands, since the
war, have increased their dorhestick supplies to a great degree.

THE now United States exported about one hundred and
thirty thousand barrels of flour in 1773 to the West-Indies*
Ireland by grazing less could supply wheat j England herself
usually exports it : she also imports from Archangel. Sicily
and the Barbary states furnish wheat in abundance. Wre are
deceived, when we fancy we can starve foreign countries.
7

50 SPEECH ON

France is reckoned to consume grain at the rate of sevea
bushels to each soul. Twenty six millions of souls, the quan
tity one hundred and eighty two millions of bushels. We
export, to speak in round numbers, five or six millions of bush
els to all the different countries, which we supply ; a trifle
this to their wants. Frugality is a greater resource. Instead
of seven bushels, perhaps two could be saved by stinting the
consumption of the food of cattle, or by the use of other food.
Two bushels saved to each soul is fifty two millions of bushels,
a quantity which the whole trading world, perhaps, could not
furnish. Rice is said to be prohibited by Spain and Portugal
to favour their own. Brasil could supply their rice instead of
ours.

LUMBER ; I must warn you of the danger of despising
Canada and Nova Scotia too much as rivals in the West-India
supply, especially the former. The dependence the English
had placed on them some years ago failed, partly because
we entered into competition with them on very superiour
terms, and partly because they were then in an infant state.
They are now supposed to have considerably more than dou
bled their numbers since the peace ; and if, instead of having
us for competitors for the supply as before, we should shut
ourselves out by refusing our supplies, or being refused entry
for them, those two colonies would rise from the ground : at
least we should do more to bring it about than the English
ministry have been able to do. In 1772, six hundred and
seventy nine vessels, the actual tonnage of which was one
hundred and twenty eight thousand, were employed in the
West-India trade from Great Britain. They were supposed,
on good ground, to be but half freighted to the islands : they
might carry lumber, and the freight supposed to be deficient
would be, at forty shillings sterling the ton, one hundred and
twenty eight thousand pounds sterling. This sum would
diminish the extra charge of carrying lumber to the islands.
But is lumber to be had ? Yes, in Germany, and from the
Raltick. It is even cheaper in Europe than our own. Besides

MR. MADISON'S RESOLUTIONS. 51

which, the hard woods used in mills are abundant in the
islands.

WE are told they can sell their rum only to the United
States. This concerns not their subsistence, but their profit.
Examine it however. In 1773, the now United States took
near three million gallons of rum. The remaining British
colonies, Newfoundland and the African coast, have a con
siderable demand for this article. The demand of Ireland is
very much on the increase. It was in 1763, five hundred and
thirty thousand gallons ; 1770, one million five hundred and
fifty eight thousand gallons ; 1778, one million seven hundred
and twenty nine thousand gallons.

THUS we see, a total stoppage of the West-India trade
would not starve the islanders. It would affect us deeply ;
we should lose the sale of our products, and, of course, not
gain the carriage in our own vessels : the object of the contest
would be no nearer our reach than before. Instead, however,
of a total stoppage of the intercourse, it might happen, that,
each nation prohibiting the vessels of the other, some third
nation would carry on the traffick in its own bottoms. WThile
this measure would disarm our system, it would make it recoil
upon ourselves. It would, in effect, operate chiefly to obstruct
the sale of our products. If they should remain unsold, it
would be so much dead loss ; or if the effect should be to raise
the price on the consumers, it would either lessen the con
sumption, or raise up rivals in the supply. The contest, as it
respects the West-India trade, is in every respect against us.
To embarrass the supply from the United States, supposing
the worst as it regards the planters, can do no more than
enhance the price of sugar, coffee, and other products. The
French islands are now in ruins, and the English planters
have an increased price and double demand in consequence.
While Great Britain confined the colony trade to herself, she
gave to the colonists in return a monopoly in her consumption
of West-India articles. The extra expense, arising from the
severest operation of our system, is already provided against

52 SPEECH ON

two fold : like other charges on the products of labour and
capital, the burden will fall on the consumer. The luxurious
and opulent consumer in Europe will not regard, and perhaps
will not know, the increase of price nor the cause of it. The
new settler, who clears his land and sells the lumber, will feel
any convulsion in the market more sensibly, without being
able to sustain it at all. It is a contest of wealth against want
of self-denial, between luxury and daily subsistence, that we
provoke with so much confidence of success. A man of ex
perience in the West-India trade will see this contrast more
strongly than it is possible to represent it.

ONE of the excellences, for which the measure is recom
mended, is, that it will affect our imports. What is offered as
an argument is really an objection. Who will supply our
wants ? Our own manufactures are growing, and it is a subject
of great satisfaction that they are. But it would be wrong to
over-rate their capacity to clothe us. The same number of
inhabitants require more and more, because wealth increases.
Add to this the rapid growth of our numbers, and perhaps it
will be correct to estimate the progress of manufacturers as
only keeping pace with that of our increasing consumption
and population. It follows, that we shall continue to demand
in future to the amount of our present importation. It is not
intended by the resolutions, that we shall import from Eng
land. Holland and the north of Europe do not furnish a suf
ficient variety, or sufficient quantity for our consumption. It
is in vain to look to Spain, Portugal, and the Italian States.
We are expected to depend principally upon France : it is
impossible to examine the ground of this dependence without
adverting to the present situation of that country. It is a
subject, upon whhh I practise no disguise ; but I do not think
it proper to introduce the politicks of France into this discus
sion. If others can find in the scenes that pass there, or in
the principles and agents that direct them, proper subjects for
amiable names, and sources of joy and hope in the prospect, I
have nothing to say to it : it is an amusement, which it is not

MR. MADISON'S RESOLUTIONS, 53

my intention either to disturb or to partake of. I turn from
these horrours to examine the condition of France in respect to
manufacturing, capital, and industry. In this point of view,
whatever political improvements may be hoped for. it cannot
escape observation, that it presents only a wide field of waste
and desolation. Capital, which used to be food for manufac
tures, is become their fuel. What once ndurished industry
now lights the fires of civil war, and quickens the progress of
destruction. France is like a ship with a fine cargo burning
to the water's edge ; she may be built upon anew, and freighted
with another cargo, and it will be time enough, when that
shall be, to depend on a part of it for our supply : at present,
and for many years, she will not be so much a furnisher as a
consumer. It is therefore obvious, that we shall import our
supplies either directly or indirectly from Great Britain. Any
obstruction to the importation will raise the price which we,
who consume, must bear.

THAT part of the argument, which rests on the supposed
distress of the British manufacturers, in consequence of the
loss of our market, is in every view unfounded. They would
not lose the market in fact, and if they did, we prodigiously
exaggerate the importance of our consumption to the British
workmen. Important it doubtless is, but a little attention will
expose the extreme folly of the opinion, that they would be
brought to our feet by a trial of our self-denying spirit. Eng
land now supplants France in the important Levant trade, in
the supply of manufactured goods to the East, and, in a great
measure, to the West-Indies, to Spain, Portugal, and their
dependencies. Her trade with Russia has, of late, vastly in
creased ; and she is treating for a trade with China : so that
the new demands of English manufactures, consequent upon
the depression of France as a rival, has amounted to much
more than the whole American importation, which is not three
millions.

THE ill effect of a system of restriction and prohibition in
the West-Indies has been noticed already. The privileges

54 SPEECH ON

allowed to our exports to England may be withdrawn, and
prohibitory or high duties imposed.

THE system before us is a mischief, that goes to the root of
our prosperity. The merchants will suffer by the schemes
and projects of a new theory. Great numbers were ruined by
the convulsions of 1775. They are an order of citizens de
serving better of government, than to be involved in new con
fusions. It is wrong to make our trade wage war for our
politicks. It is now scarcely said, that it is a thing to be
sought for, but a weapon to fight with. To gain our approba
tion to the system, we are told it is to be gradually established.
In that case, it will be unavailing. It should be begun with
in all its strength, if we think of starving the islands. Drive
them suddenly and by surprise to extremity, if you would
dictate terms ; but they will prepare against a long-expected
failure of our supplies.

OUR nation will be tired of suffering loss and embarrassment
for the French. The struggle, so painful to ourselves, so
ineffectual against England, will be renounced, and we shall
sit down with shame and loss, with disappointed passions and
aggravated complaints. War, which \vould then suit our feel
ings, would not suit our weakness. We might perhaps find
some European power willing to make war on England, and we
might be permitted by a strict alliance to partake ihe misery
and the dependence of being a subaltern in the quarrel. The
happiness of this situation seems to be in view, when the
system before us is avowed to be the instrument of avenging
our political resentments. Those, who affect to dread foreign
influence, will do well to avoid a partnership in European
jealousies and rivalships. Courting the friendship of the one,
and provoking the hatred of the other, is dangerous to our
real independence ; for it would compel America to throw
herself into the arms of the one for protection against the.
other. Then foreign influence, pernicious as it is, would be
sought for ; and though it should be shunned, it could not be
resisted. The connections of trade form ties between indivi-

MR. MADISON'S RESOLUTIONS. 55

duals, and produce little controul over government. They are
the ties of peace, and are neither corrupt nor corrupting.

WE have happily escaped from a state of the most imminent
danger to our peace : a false step would lose all the security
for its continuance, which we owe at this moment to the con
duct of the president. What is to save us from war ? Not our
own power which inspires no terrour ; not the gentle and for
bearing spirit of the powers of Europe at this crisis ; not the
weakness of England ; not her affection for this country, if we
believe the assurances of gentlemen on the other side. What
is it then ? It is the interest of Great Britain to have America
for a customer, rather than an enemy : and it is precisely that
interest, which gentlemen are so eager to take away, and to
transfer to Erance. And what is stranger still, they say, they
rely on that operation as a means of producing peace with the
Indians and Algerines.w The wounds, inflicted on Great Britain
by our enmity, are expected to excite her to supplicate our
friendship, and to appease us by soothing the animosity of our
enemies. What is to produce effects so mystical, so opposite
to nature, so much exceeding the efficacy of their pretended
causes ? This wonder-working paper on the table is the weapon
of terrour and destruction : like the writing on Belshazzer's
wall, it is to strike parliaments and nations with dismay : it
is to be stronger than fleets against pirates, or than armies
against Indians. After the examination it has undergone,
credulity itself will laugh at these pretensions. •

WE pretend to expect, not by the force of our restrictions,
but by the mere shew of our spirit, to level all the fences, that
have guarded for ages the monopoly of the colony trade. The
repeal of the navigation act of England, which is cherished as
the palladium of her safety, which time has rendered venera
ble, and prosperity endeared to her people, is to be extorted,
from her fears of a weaker nation. It is not to be yielded
freely, but violently torn from her; and yet the idea of a
struggle to prevent indignity and loss, is considered as a
chimera too ridiculous for sober refutation. She will not dare.

56 SPEECH ON

say they, to resent it ; and gentlemen have pledged themselves
for the success of the attempt : what is treated as a phantom
is vouched by fact. Her navigation act is known to have
caused an immediate contest with the Dutch, and four des
perate sea fights ensued, in consequence, the very year of its
passage.

How far it is an act of aggression, for a neutral nation to
assist the supplies of one neighbour, and to annoy and distress
another, at the crisis of a contest between the two, which strains
their strength to the utmost, is a question, which we might
not agree in deciding ; but the tendency cf such unseasonable
partiality to exasperate the spirit of hostility against the in
truder cannot be doubted. The language of the French
government would not sooth this spirit. It proposes, on the
sole condition of a political connection, to extend to us a part
of their West-India commerce. The coincidence of our mea
sures with their invitation, however singular, needs no com
ment. Of all men those are least consistent, who believe in
the efficacy of the regulations, and yet affect to ridicule their
hostile tendency. In the commercial conflict, say they, we
shall surely prevail and effectually humble Great Britain.

IN open war we are the weaker, and shall be brought into
danger, if not to ruin. It depends, therefore, according to
their own reasoning, on Great Britain herself, whether she
will persist in a struggle, which will disgrace and weaken her,
or turn it into a war, which will throw the shame and ruin
upon her antagonist. The topicks, which furnish arguments
to shew the danger to our peace from the resolutions, are too
fruitful to be exhausted. But without pursuing them further,
the experience of mankind has shewn, that commercial rival-
ships, which spring from mutual efforts for monopoly, have
kindled more wars, and wasted the earth more, than the spirit
of conquest.

I HOPE we shall shew by our vote, that we deem it better
policy to feed nations than to starve them, and that we shall
never be so unwise as to put our good customers into a situa-

>MR. MADISON'S RESOLUTIONS, 5?

tion to be forced to make every exertion to do without us. By-
cherishing the arts of peace, we shall acquire, and we arc
actually acquiring the strength and resources for a war. In-
stead of seeking treaties, we ought to shun them ; for the later
they shall be formed, the better will be the terms : we shall
have more to give, and more to withhold. We have not yet
taken our proper rank, nor acquired that consideration, which
will not be refused us, if we persist in prudent and pacifick
counsels, if we give time for our strength to mature itself.
Though America is rising with a giant's strength, its bones
are yet but cartilages. By delaying the beginning of a conflict,
we insure the victory.

BY voting out the resolutions, we shall shew to our own*
citizens, and foreign nations, that our prudence has prevailed
over our prejudices, that we prefer our interests to our resent
ments. Let us assert a genuine independence of spirit : we
shall be false to our duty and feelings as Americans, if we
basely descend to a servile dependence on France or Great
Britain.

SPEECH

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES,
IN SUPPORT OF THE FOLLOWING MOTION :

RESOLVED, That it is expedient to pass the laws necessary to carry
into effect the treaty lately concluded between the United States
and the king of Great Britain.

DELIVERED APRIL 28, 17Q6.

1 ENTERTAIN the hope, perhaps a rash one, that my strength
will hold me out to speak a few minutes.

IN my judgment, a right decision will depend more on the
temper and manner, with which we may prevail upon our
selves to contemplate the subject, than upon the developement
of any profound political principles, or any remarkable skill in
the application of them. If we could succeed to neutralize
our inclinations, we should find less difficulty than we have to
apprehend in surmounting all our objections.

THE suggestion, a few days ago, that the house manifested
symptoms of heat and irritation, was made and retorted as if
the charge ought to create surprise) and would convey reproach.
Let us be more just to ourselves and to the occasion. Let
us not affect to deny the existence and the intrusion of some
portion of prejudice and feeling into the debate, when, from
the very structure of our nature, we ought to anticipate the
circumstance as a probability, and when we are admonish
ed by the evidence of our senses that it is a fact. How can we
make professions for ourselves, and offer exhortations to the
house, that no influence should be felt but that of duty, and no
guide respected but that of the understanding, while the peal
to rally every passion of man is continually ringing in our
ears. Our understandings have been addressed, it is true,
and with ability and effect ; but, I demand, has any corner of
the heart been left unexplored ? It has been ransacked to find

SPEECH ON THE BRITISH TREATY. 59-

auxiliary arguments ; and, when that attempt failed, to awaken
the sensibility, that would require none. Every prejudice
and feeling has been summoned to listen to some peculiar
style of address ; and yet we seem to believe, and to consider
a doubt as an affront, that we are strangers to any influence
but that of unbiassed reason.

IT would be strange, that a subject, which has roused in
turn all the passions of the country, should be discussed
without the interference of any of our own. We are me'1,
and therefore not exempt from those passions : as citizens
and representatives, we feel the interest that must excite
them. The hazard of great interests cannot fail to agitate
strong passions : we are not disinterested ; it is impossible
we should be dispassionate. The warmth of such feelings
may becloud the judgment, and, for a time, pervert the
understanding. But the publick sensibility, and our own,
has sharpened the spirit of inquiry, and given an animation
to the debate. The publick attention has been quickened
to mark the progress of the discussion, and its judgment,
often hasty and erroneous on first impressions, has become
solid and enlightened at last. Our result will, I hope, on.
that account, be the safer and more mature, as well as more
accordant with that of the nation. The only constant agents
in political affairs are the passions of men. Shall we com
plain of our nature ; shall we say that man ought to have
been made otherwise. It is right already, because HE, from
whom we derive our nature, ordained it so ; and because,
thus made and thus acting, the cause of truth and the publick
good is the more surely promoted.

BUT an attempt has been made to produce an influence
of a nature more stubborn, and more unfriendly to truth. It
is very unfairly pretended, that the constitutional right of
this house is at stake, and to b3 asserted and preserved only
by a vote in the negative. We hear it said, that this is a
struggle for liberty, a manly resistance against the design
to nullify this assembly, and to make it a cypher in the

60" SPEECfH ON THE

government : that the president and senate, the numerous,
meetings in the cities, and the influence of the general
alarm of the country, are the agents and instruments of a
scheme of coercion and terrour, to force the treaty down
our throats, though we loath it, and in spite of the clearest
convictions of duty and conscience.

IT is necessary to pause here, and inquire, whether sug
gestions of this kind be not unfair in their very texture and
fabrick, and pernicious in all their influences. They oppose
an obstacle in the path of inquiry, not simply discouraging,
but absolutely insurmountable. They will not yield to argu
ment ; for, as they were not reasoned up, they cannot be
reasoned down. They are higher than a Chinese wall in
truth's way, and built of materials that are indestructible.
While this remains, it is vain to say to this mountain, be
thou cast into the sea. For I ask of the men of knowledge
of the world, whether they would not hold him for a block
head, that should hope to prevail in an argument, whose
scope and object it is to mortify the self-love of the expected
proselyte ? I ask further, when such attempts have been
made, have they not failed of success ? The indignant heart
repels a conviction, that is believed to debase it.

THE self-love of an individual is not warmer in its sense,
nor more constant in its action, than what is called in French
1'esprit du corps, or the self-love of an assembly ; that jealous
affection which a body of men is always found to bear towards
its own prerogatives and power. I will not condemn this pas
sion. Why should we urge an unmeaning censure, or yield
to groundless fears that truth and duty will be abandoned,
because men in a publick assembly are still men, and feel
that esprit du corps which is one of the laws of their nature ?
Still less should we despond or complain, if we reflect, that
this very spirit is a guardian instinct that watches over the
life of this assembly. It cherishes the principle of self-
preservation, and without its existence, and its existence
with all the strength we see it possess, the privileges of the

BRITISH TREATY. 61

representatives of the people, and, mediately, the liberty of
the people would not be guarded, as they are, with a vigi
lance that never sleeps, and an unrelaxing constancy and
courage.

IF the consequences most unfairly attributed to the vote
in the affirmative were not chimerical, and worse, for they
are deceptive, I should think it a reproach to be found even
moderate in my zeal to assert the constitutional powers of
this assembly ; and whenever they shall be in real danger,
the present occasion affords proof, that there will be no want
of advocates and champions.

INDEED so prompt are these feelings, and, when once
roused, so difficult to pacify, that, if we could prove the
alarm was groundless, the prejudice against the appropria
tions may remain on the mind, and it may even pass for an
act of prudence and duty to negative a measure, which was
lately believed by ourselves, and may hereafter be miscon
ceived by others, to encroach upon the powers of the house.
Principles that bear a remote affinity with usurpation on
those powers will be rejected, not merely as errours, but as
wrongs. Our sensibility will shrink from a post, where it
is possible it may be wounded, and be inflamed by the slight
est suspicion of an assault.

WHILE these prepossessions remain, all argument is use
less : it may be heard with the ceremony of attention, and
lavish its own resources, and the patience it wearies to no
manner of purpose. The ears may be open, but the mind
will remain locked up, and every pass to the understanding
guarded. Unless therefore this jealous and repulsive fear
for the rights of the house can be allayed, I will not ask a
hearing.

I CANNOT press this topick too far ; I cannot address my
self with too much emphasis to the magnanimity and can
dour of those who sit here, to suspect their own feelings,
and, while they do, to examine the grounds of their alarm „
I repeat it, we must conquer our persuasion, that this body

62 SPEECH OX THE

has an interest in one side of the question more than the
other, before \ve attempt to surmount our objections. On
most subjects, and solemn ones too, perhaps in the most
solemn of all, we form our creed more from inclination
than evidence.

LET me expostulate \viih gentlemen to admit, if it be only
by way of supposition, and for a moment, that it is barely
possible they have yielded too suddenly to their alarms for
the powers of this house ; that the addresses, which have
been made with such variety of forms, and with so great
dexterity in some of them, to all that is prejudice and passion
in the heart, are either the effects or the instruments of
artifice and deception, and then let them see the subject
once more in its singleness and simplicity.

IT will be impossible, on taking a fair review of the sub
ject, to justify the passionate appeals that have been made
to us, to struggle for our liberties and rights, and the solemn
exhortations to reject the proposition, said to be concealed
in that on your table, to surrender them for ever. In spite
of this mock solemnity, I demand, if the house will not con
cur in the measure to execute the treaty, what other course
shall we take I How many ways of proceeding lie open be
fore us ?

IN the nature of things, there are but three : we are either
to make the treaty, to observe it, or break it. It would be
absurd to say, we will do neither. If I may repeat a phrase
already so much abused, we are under coercion to do one of
them ; and we have no power, by the exercise of our discre
tion, to prevent the consequences of a choice.

BY refusing to act, we choose : the treaty will be broken
and fall to the ground. Where is the fitness then of reply
ing to those who urge upon the house the topicks of duty
and policy, that they attempt to force the treaty down, and
to compel this assembly to renounce its discretion, and to
degrade itself to the rank of a blind and passive instrument
in the hands of the treaty-making power. In case we reject

BRITISH TREATY. 63

the appropriation, we do not secure any greater liberty of
action, we gain no safer shelter than before from the conse
quences of the decision. Indeed they are not to be evaded.
It is neither just nor manly to complain, that the treaty-
making power has produced this coercion to act: it is not
the art or the despotism of that power, it is the nature of |
things, that compels. Shall we, dreading to become the
blind instruments of power, yield ourselves the blinder dupes
of mere sounds of imposture ? Yet that word, that empty
word, coercion, has given scope to an eloquence, that one
would imagine could not be tired, and did not choose to be
quieted.

LET us examine still more in detail the alternatives that
ave before us, and we shall scarcely fail to see in still stronger
lights the futility of our apprehensions for the power and
liberty of the house.

IF, as some have suggested, the thing, called a treaty,
is incomplete, if it has no binding force or obligation, the
first question is, will this house complete the instrument, and,
by concurring, impart to it that force which it wants.

THE doctrine has been avowed, that the treaty, though
formally ratified' by the executive power of both nations,
though published as a law for our own by the president's
proclamation, is still a mere proposition submitted to this
assembly, no way distinguishable in point of authority or
obligation from a motion for leave to bring in a bill, or
any other original act of ordinary legislation. This doctrine,
so novel in our country, yet so dear to many precisely for
the reason, that in the contention for power victory is always
dear, is obviously repugnant to the very terms as well as
the fair interpretation of our own resolution. (Mr. Blount's.)
We declare, that the treaty-making power is exclusively
vested in the president and senate, and not in this house.
Need I say, that we fly in the face of that resolution, when
we pretend, that the acts of that power are not valid, until
we hare concurred in them. It would be nonsense, or ^Yorsc,

64 SPKEdH ON T1IB

to use the language of the most glaring contradiction, ancl
to claim a share in a power, which we at the same time dis
claim, as exclusively vested in other departments. What
can be more strange than to say, that the compacts of the
president and senate with foreign nations are treaties, without
our agency, ancf yet that those compacts want all power and
obligation, until they are sanctioned by our concurrence. It is
not my design in this place, if at all, to go into the discussion
of this part of the subject. I will, at least for the present,
take it for granted, that this monstrous opinion stands in little
need of remark, and, if it does, lies almost out of the reach
of refutation.

BUT, say those who hide the absurdity under the cover of
ambiguous phrases, have we no discretion ? and if we have,
are we not to make use of it in judging of the expediency or
inexpediency of the treaty ? Our resolution claims that
privilege, and we cannot surrender it without equal inconsist
ency and breach of duty.

IF there be any inconsistency in this case, it lies not in
making the appropriations for the treaty, but in the resolu
tion itself. Let us examine it more nearly. A treaty is a
bargain between nations, binding in good faith : and what
makes a bargain ? The assent of the contracting parties.
We allow, that the treaty power is not in this house ; this
house has no share in contracting, and is not a party : of
consequence the president and senate alone may make a
treaty that is binding in good faith. We claim, however,
say the gentlemen, a right to judge of the expediency of
treaties ; that is the constitutional province of our discretion.
Be it so. What follows ? Treaties, when adjudged by us to
be inexpedient, fall to the ground, and the publick faith is
not hurt. This, incredible and extravagant as it may seem,
is asserted. The amount of it, in plainer language, is this,
the president and senate are to make national bargains, and
this house has nothing to do in making them. But bad bar
gains do not bind this house, and of inevitable consequence*

BRITISH TREATY. 65

tto not bind the nation. When a national bargain, called a
treaty, is made, its binding force does not depend on the
making, but upon our opinion that it is good. As our
opinion on the matter can be known and declared only by
ourselves, when sitting in our legislative capacity, the treaty,
though ratified, and, as we choose to term it, made, is hung
up in suspense, till our sense is ascertained. We condemn
the bargain, and it falls, though, as we say, our f ith does
not. We approve a bargain as expedient, and it stands firm,
and binds the nation. Yet, even in this latter case, its force
is plainly not derived from the ratification by the treaty-
makino: power, but from our approbation. Who will trace
these inferences, and pretend, that we have no share, accord
ing to the argument, in the treaty-making power ? These
opinions, nevertheless, have been advocated with infinite
zeal and perseverance. Is it possible that any man can be
hardy enough to avow them, and their ridiculous conse
quences ?

LET me hasten to suppose the treaty is considered as al
ready made, and then the alternative is fairly present to the
mind, whether he will observe the treaty, or break it. This,
in fact, is the naked question.

IF we choose to observe it with good faith, our course is
obvious. Whatever is stipulated to be done by the nation,
must be complied with. Our agency? if it should be requi
site, cannot be properly refused. And I do not bee why it is
not as obligatory a rule of conduct for the legislature as for
the courts of law

I CANNOT lose this opportunity to remark, that the coer
cion, so much dreaded and declaimed against, appears at
length to be no more than the authority of principles, the
despotism of duty. Gentlemen complain we are forced to
act in this way ; we are forced to swallow the treaty. It is
very true, unless we claim the liberty of abuse, the right to
act as we ought not. There is but one right way open for
us: the laws of morality and good faith have fenced_jip
9

66 SPEECH ON THE

every other. What sort of liberty is that, which we pre
sume to exercise against the authority of those laws ? It is
for tyrants to complain, that principles are restraints, and
that they have no liberty, so long as their despotism has lim
its. These principles will be unfolded by examining the
remaining question :

SHALL we break the fREAfr ?

THE treaty is bad, fatally bad, is the cry. It sacrifices the
interest, the honour, the independence of the United States,
and the faith of our engagements to France. If we listen to
the clamour of party intemperance, the evils are of a num
ber not to be counted, and of a nature not to be borne, ev&n
in idea. The language of passion and exaggeration may si
lence that of sober reason in other places, it has not done it
here. The question here is, whether the treaty be really so
very fatal, as to oblige the nation to break its faith. I admit
that such a treaty ought not to be executed. I admit that self-
preservation is the first law of society, as well as of individ
uals. It would perhaps be deemed an abuse of terms to call
that a treaty, which violates such a principle. I wave also,
for the present, any inquiry, what departments shall repre
sent the nation, and annul the stipulations of a treaty. I
content myself with pursuing the inquiry, whether the na
ture of the compact be such as to justify our refusal to cam-
it into effect. A treaty is the promise of a nation. Now,
promises do not always bind him that makes them.

BUT I lay down two rules, which ought to guide us in this
case. The treaty must appear to be bad not merely in the
petty details, but in its character, principle, and mass : and
in the next place, this ought to be ascertained by the decided
and general concurrence of the enlightened publick. I con
fess there seems to me something very like ridicule thrown
over the debate by the discussion of the articles in detail.

THE undecided point is, shall we break our faith ? And
while our country, and enlightened Europe, await the issue

BRITISH TREATY. 6?

with more than curiosity, we are employed to gather, piece
meal, and article by article, from the instrument, a justification
for the deed by trivial calculations of commercial profit and
loss. This is little worthy of the subject, of this body, or of
the nation. If the treaty is bad, it will appear to be so in its
mass. Evil to a fatal extreme, if that be its tendency, requires
no proof : it brings it. Extremes speak for themselves, and
make their own law. What if the direct voyage of American
ships to Jamaica with horses or lumber might net one or two
per cent, more than the present trade to Surinam, would the
proof of the fact avail any thing in so grave a question as the
violation of the publick engagements ? "^f

IT is in vain to allege, that our faith plighted to France is
violated by this new treaty. Our prior treaties are expressly
saved from the operation of the British treaty. And what do
those mean, who say, that our honour was forfeited by treating
at all, and especially by such a treaty ? Justice, the laws, and
practice of nations, a just regard for peace as a duty to man
kind, and the known wish of our citizens, as well as that self-
respect which required it of the nation to act with dignity and
moderation, all these forbad an appeal to arms before we had
tried the effect of negociation. The honour of the United
States was saved, not forfeited by treating. The treaty itself,
by its stipulations for the posts, for indemnity, and for a due
observation of our neutral rights, has justly raised the charac
ter of the nation. Never did the name of America appear in
Europe with more lustre, than upon the event of ratifying
this instrument. The fact is of a nature to overcome all con
tradiction.

BUT the independence of the country — we are colonists
again. This is the cry of the very men who tell us, that
France will resent our exercise of the rights of an indepen
dent nation to adjust our wrongs- with an aggressor, without
giving her the opportunity to say, those wrongs shall subsist
and shall not be adjusted. This is an admirable specimen of
independence. The treaty with Great Britain, it cannot be
denied, is unfavourable to this strange sort of independence.

68 SPEECH ON THE

FEW men of any reputation for sense among those who say
the treaty is bad, will put that reputation so much at hazard
as to pretend, that it is so extremely bad as to warrant and
require a violation of the publick faith. The proper ground
of the controversy, therefore, is really unoccupied by the oppo-
sers of the treaty ; as the very hinge of the debate is on the
point, not of its being good or otherwise, but whether it is
intolerably and fatally pernicious. If loose and ignorant de-
claimers have any where asserted the latter idea, it is too
extravagant, and too solidly refuted, to be repeated here.
Instead of any attempt to expose it still further, I will say,
and I appeal with confidence to the candour of many opposers
to the treaty to acknowledge, that, if it had been permitted to
go into operation silently, like our other treaties, so little altera
tion of y.ny sort would be made by it in the great mass of our
commercial and agricultural concerns, that it would not be j
generally discovered by its effects to be in force, during the
term for which it was contracted. I place considerable reli
ance on the weight men of candour will give to this remark,
because I believe it to be true, and little short of undeniable.
When the panick dread of the treaty shall cease, as it certain
ly must, it will be seen through another medium. Those
•who shall make search into the articles for the cause of their
alarms, will be so far from finding stipulations that will operate
fatally, they will discover few of them that will have any last
ing operation at all. Those which relate to the disputes
between the two countries will spend their force upon the sub
jects in dispute, and extinguish them. The commercial articles
are more of a nature to confirm the existing state of things,
than to change it. The treaty alarm was purely an address to
the imagination and prejudices of the citizens, and not on that
account the less formidable. Objections that proceed upon
errour in fact or calculation, may be traced and exposed ; but
such as are drawn from the imagination, or addressed to it,
elude definition, and return to domineer over the mind, after
having been banished from it by truth.

BRITISH TREATY. 69

K I WILL not so far abuse the momentary strength that is lent
to me by the zeal of the occasion, as to enlarge upon the com
mercial operation of the treaty. V I proceed to the second pro
position, which I have stated as indispensably requisite to a
refusal of the performance of a treaty : will the state of pub-
lick opinion justify the deed ?

No government, not even a despotism, will break its faith,
without some pretext ; and it must be plausible, it must be
such as will carry the pnblick opinion alon^ with it. Reasons
of policy, if not of morality, dissuade even Turkey and Algiers
from breaches of treaty in mere wantonness of perfidy, in open
contempt of the reproaches of their subjects. Surely a popu
lar government will not proceed more arbitrarily, as it is more
free ; nor with less shame or scruple, in proportion as it has
better morals. It will not proceed against the faith of treaties
at all, unless the strong and decided sense of the nation shall
pronounce, not simply that the treaty is not advantageous, but
that it ought to be broken and annulled.

SUCH a plain manifestation of the sense of the citizens is
indispensably requisite ; first, because, if the popular apprehen
sions be not an infallible criterion of the disadvantages of the
instrument, their acquiescence in the operation of it is an irre
fragable proof, that the extreme case does not exist, which
alone could justify our setting it aside.

IN the next place, this approving opinion of the citizens is
requisite, as the best preventive of the ill consequences of a
measure always so delicate, and often so hazardous. Individu
als would, in that case at least, attempt to repel the opprobri
um that would be thrown upon congress by those who will
charge it with perfidy. They would give weight to the testi
mony of facts, and the authority of principles, on which the
government would rest its vindication : and if war should ensue
upon the violation, our citizens would not be divided from their
government, nor the ardour of their courage be chilled by the
consciousness of injustice, and the sense of humiliation, that
sense which makes those despicable who know they are des
pised.

70 SPEECH ON THE

I ADD a third reason, and whh me it has a force that no words
of mine can augment, that a government wantonly refusing to
fulfil its engagement is the corrupter of its citizens. Will the
laws continue to prevail in the hearts of the people > when the
respect that gives them efficacy is withdrawn from the legisla
tors ? How shall we punish vice, while we practise it ? We
have not force, and vain will be our reliance, when we have
forfeited the resources of opinion. To weaken government,
and to corrupt morals, are effects of a 'breach of faith not to be
prevented ; and from effects they become causes, produced
with augmented activity, more disorder and more corruption :
order will be disturbed, and the life of the publick liberty
shortened.

AND who, I would inquire, is hardy enough to pretend, that
the publick voice demands the violation of the treaty ? The
evidence of the sense of the great mass of the nation is often
equivocal ; but when was it ever manifested with more energy
and precision than at the present moment ? The voice of the
people is raised against the measure of refusing the appropria
tions. If gentlemen should urge, nevertheless, that all this
sound of alarm is a counterfeit expression of the sense of the
publick, I will proceed to other proofs. Is the treaty ruinous
to our commerce ? What has blinded the eyes of the merchants
and traders ? Surely they are not enemies to trade, nor ignorant
of their own interests. Their sense is not so liable to be
mistaken as that of a nation, and they are almost unanimous ,
The articles stipulating the redress of our injuries by captures
on the sea, are said to be delusive. By whom is this said ?
The very men whose fortunes are staked upon the competency
of that redress, say no such thing. They wait with anxious
fear, lest you should annul that compact, on which all their
hopes are rested.

THUS we offer proof, little short of absolute demonstration .
that the voice of our country is raised not to sanction, but to
deprecate, the non-performance of our engagements. It is
not the nation, it is one, and but one, branch of the govern-

BRITISH TREATY. 71

nient that proposes to reject them. With this aspect of things,
to reject is an act of desperation.

I SHALL be asked, why a treaty so good in some articles,
and so harmless in others, has met with such unrelenting
opposition ? and how the clamours against it from New-Hamp
shire to Georgia can be accounted for ? The apprehensions so
extensively diffused, on its first publication, will be vouched
as proof, that the treaty is bad, and that the people hold it in
abhorrence.

I AM not embarrassed to find the answer to this insinuation.
Certainly a foresight of its pernicious operation could not have
created all the fears that were felt or affected: the alarm
spread faster than the publication of the treaty : there were
more criticks than readers. Besides, as the subject was exa
mined, those fears have subsided. The movements of passion
are quicker than those of the understanding : we are to
search for the causes of first impressions, not in the articles of
this obnoxious and misrepresented instrument, but in the state
of the publick feeling.

THE fervour of the revolution war had not entirely cooled,
nor its controversies ceased, before the sensibility of our citi
zens was quickened with a tenfold vivacity by a new and
extraordinary subject of irritation. One of the two great
nations of Europe underwent a change, which has attracted
all our wonder, and interested all our sympathy. Whatever
they did, the zeal of many went with them, and often went to
excess. These impressions met with much to inflame, and
nothing to restrain them. In our newspapers, in our feasts,
and some of our elections, enthusiasm was admitted a merit,
a test of patriotism; and that made it contagious. In the
opinion of party, we could not love or hate enough. I dare
say, in spite of all the obloquy it may provoke, we were ex
travagant in both. It is my right to avow, that passions so
impetuous, enthusiasm so wild, could not subsist without dis
turbing the sober exercise of reason, without putting at risk
the peace and precious interests of our country. They were
hazarded. I will not exhaust the little breath I have left, to

72 SPEECH OX THE

say how much, nor by whom, or by what means they were
rescued from the sacrifice. Shall I be called upon to ofi^r my
proofs ? They are here, they are every where. No one has
forgotten the proceedings of 1794. No one has forgotten the
captures of cur vessels, and the imminent danger of war. The
nation thirsted not merely for reparation but vengeance. Suf
fering such wrongs and agitated by such resentments, was it
in the power of any words of compact, or couid any parchment
with its seals prevail at once to tranquillize the people ? It was
impossible. Treaties in England are seldom popular, and
least of all, when the stipulations of amity succeed to the
bitterness of hatred. Even the best treaty, though nothing
be refused, will choak resentment, but not satisfy it. Every
treaty is as sure to disappoint extravagant expectations, as to
disarm extravagant passions. Of the latter, hatred is one that
takes no bribes : they who are animated by the spirit of revenge,
will not be quieted by the possibility of profit.

WHY do they complain, that the West-Indies are not laid
open ? Why do they lament, that any restriction is stipulated
on the commerce of the East-Indies ? Why do they pretend,
that if they reject this, and insist upon more, more will be
accomplished ? Let us be explicit — more would not satisfy. If
all was granted, would not a treaty of amity with Britain still
be obnoxious ? Have we not this instant heard it urged against
our envoy, that he was not ardent enough in his hatred of
Great Britain ? A treaty of amity is condemned because it was
not made by a foe, and in the spirit of one. The same gentle
man, at the same instant, repeats a very prevailing objection,
that no treaty should be made with the enemy of France. No
treaty, exclaim others, should be made with a monarch or a
despot : there will be no naval security while those sea robbers
domineer on the ocean: their den must be destroyed: that
nation must be extirpated.

I LIKE this, sir, because it is sincerity. With feelings such
as these, we do not pant for treaties : such passions seek
nothing, and will be content with nothing, but the destruction
of their object. If a treaty left king George his island, it

BRITISH TREATY. 73

would not answer, not if he stipulated to pay rent for it. It
has been said, the world ought to rejoice, if Britain was sunk
in the sea ; if, where there are now men, and wealth, and laws,
and liberty, there was no more than a sand bank for the sea
monsters to fatten on, a space for the storms of the ocean to
mingle in conflict. \f

I OBJECT nothing to the good sense or humanity of all this.
I yield the point, that this is a proof that the age of reason is
in progress. Let it be philanthropy, let it be patriotism, if
you will ; but it is no indication, that any treaty would be ap*
proved. The difficulty is not to overcome the objections to
the terms ; it is to restrain the repugnance to any stipulations
of amity with the party.

HAVING alluded to the rival of Great Britain, I am not un
willing to explain myself: I affect no concealment, and I have
practised none. While those two great nations agitate all
Europe with their quarrels, they will both equally endeavour
to create an influence in America : each will exert all its arts
to range our strength on its own side. How is this to be
effected ? Our government is a democratical republick : it will
not be disposed to pursue a system of politicks, in subservience
to either France or England, in opposition to the general
wishes of the citizens : and, if congress should adopt such
measures, they would not be pursued long, nor with much
success. From the nature of our government, popularity i$
the instrument of foreign influence. Without it, all is labour
and disappointment : with that mighty auxiliary, foreign in*
trigue finds agents, not only volunteers, but competitors for
employment, and any thing like reluctance is understood to be a
crime. Has Britain this means of influence ? Certainly not.
If her gold could buy adherents, their becoming such would
deprive them of all political power and importance. They
would not wield popularity as a weapon, but would fall under
it. Britain has no influence, and, for the reasons just given,
can have none. She has enough ; and God forbid she ever
should have more. France, possessed of popular enthusiasm,
of party attachments, has had, and still has, too much influence
JO

74 SPEECH ON THE

on our politicks : any foreign influence is too much and ought
to be destroyed. I detest the man, and disdain the spirits, that
can bend to a mean subserviency to the view of any nation. It
is enough to be Americans : that character comprehends our
duties, and ought to engross our attachments.

BUT I would not be misunderstood. I would not break the
alliance with France : I would not have the connection between
the two countries even a cold one. It should be cordial and
sincere ; but I would banish that influence, which, by acting
on the passions of the citizens, may acquire a power over the
government.

IT is no bad proof of the merit of the treaty, that, under all
these unfavourable circumstances, it should be so well approv
ed. In spite of first impressions, in spite of misrepresentation
und party clamour, inquiry has multiplied its advocates ; and
at last the publick sentiment appears to me clearly preponde
rating to its side.

ON the most careful review of the several branches of the
treaty, those which respect political arrangements, the spolia
tions on our trade, and the regulation of commerce, there is
little to be apprehended ; the evil, aggravated as it is by party,
is little in degree, and short in duration — two years from the
end of the European war. I ask, and I would ask the question
significantly, what are the inducements to reject the treaty ?
What great object is to be gained, and fairly gained by it ? If,
however, as to the merits of the treaty, candour should suspend
its approbation, what is there to hold patriotism a moment in
balance as to the violation of it ? Nothing. I repeat confidently,
nothing. There is nothing before us in that event, but con
fusion and dishonour.

BUT before I attempt to develope those consequences, I
must put myself at ease by some explanation. Nothing is
worse received among men, than the confutation of their
opinions ; and, of these, none are more dear or more vulnera
ble than their political opinions. To say, that a proposition
leads to shame and ruin, is almost equivalent to a charge, that
the 'Supporters of it intend to produce them. I throw myself

BRITISH TREATY. 75

upon the magnanimity and candour of those who hear me. I
cannot do justice to my subject without exposing, as forcibly
as I can, all the evils in prospect. I readily admit, that in
every science, and most of all in politicks, errour springs from
other sources than the want of sense or integrity. I despise
indiscriminate professions of candour and respect. There are
individuals opposed to me, of whom I am not bound to say any
thing ; but of many, perhaps of a majority of the opposers of
the appropriations, it gives me pleasure to declare, they pos
sess my confidence and regard. There are among them in
dividuals, for whom I entertain a cordial affection.

THE consequences of refusing to make provision for the
treaty are not all to be foreseen. By rejecting, vast interests
are committed to the sport of the winds : chance becomes the
arbiter of events, and it is forbidden to human foresight to
count their number, or measure their extent. Before we
resolve to leap into this abyss, so dark and so profound, it
becomes us to pause, and reflect upon such of the dangers as
arc obvious and inevitable. If this assembly should be wrought
into a temper to defy these consequences, it is vain, it is decep
tive to pretend, that we can escape them. It is worse than
weakness to say, that, as to publick faith, our vote has already
settled the question. Another tribunal than our own is already
erected : the publick opinion, not merely of our own country,
but of the enlightened world, will pronounce a judgment that
we cannot resist, that we dare not even affect to despise.

WELL may I urge it to men, who know the worth of charac
ter, that it is no trivial calamity to have it contested. Refusing
to do what the treaty stipulates shall be done, opens the con
troversy. Even if we should stand justified at last, a character
that is vindicated is something worse than it stood before,
unquestioned and unquestionable. Like the plaintiff in an
action of slander, we recover a reputation disfigured by invec
tive, and even tarnished by too much handling. In the com
bat for the honour of the nation, it may receive some wounds,
which, though they should heal, will leave scars. I need not say,
tor surely the feelings of every bosom have anticipated, that \re

76 SPEECH ON THE

cannot guard this sense of national honour, this ever living fire,
which alone keeps patriotism warm in the heart, with a sensi
bility too vigilant and jealous. If, by executing the treaty, there
is no possibility of dishonour, and if, by rejecting, there is some
foundation for doubt and for reproach, it is not for me to mea
sure ; it is for your own feelings to estimate, the vast distance
that divides the one side of the alternative from the other.

IF therefore WTC should enter on the examination of the
question of duty and obligation with some feelings of prepos
session, I do not hesitate to say, they are such as we ought to
have : it is an after inquiry to determine, whether they are such
as ought finally to be resisted.

THE resolution (Mr. Blount's) is less explicit than the con
stitution. Its patrons should have made it more so, if possible,
if they had any doubts, or meant the publick should entertain
none. Is it the sense of that vote, as some have insinuated,
that we claim a right, for any cause or no cause at all, but our
own sovereign will and pleasure, to refuse to execute, and
thereby to annul the stipulations of a treaty ? that we have
nothing to regard but the expediency or inexpediency of the
measure, being absolutely free from all obligation by compact
to give it our sanction ? A doctrine so monstrous, so shame
less, is refuted by being avowed. There are no words you
could express it in, that would not convey both confutation and
Reproach. It would outrage the ignorance of the tenth centuiy
to believe ; it would baffle the casuistry of a papal council to
vindicate. I venture to say it is impossible. No less impossi
ble that we should desire to assert the scandalous privilege of
being free, after we have pledged our honour.

IT is doing injustice to the resolution of the house, (which I
dislike on many accounts) to strain the interpretation of it to
this extravagance. The treaty-making power is declared by
it to be vested exclusively in the president and senate. Will
any man in his senses affirm, that it can be a treaty before it
it has any binding force or obligation ? If it has no binding
force upon us, it has none upon Great Britain. Let candour
answer, is Great Britain free from any obligation to deliver

BRITISH TREATY. 77

the posts in June, and are we willing to signify to her, that
we think so ? Is it with that nation a question of mere expedi
ency or inexpediency to do it ; and that too, even after we have
done all that depends upon us to give the treaty effect ? No
sober man believes this. No one who would not join in con
demning the faithless proceeding of that nation, if such a doc
trine should be avowed, and carried into practice : and why-
complain, if Great Britain is not bound ? There can be no
breach of faith, where none is plighted. I shall be told, that
she is bound. Surely it follows, that, if she is bound to per
formance, our nation is under a similar obligation : if both parties
be not obliged, neither is obliged ; it is no compact, no treaty.
This is a dictate of law and common sense, and every jury in
the country has sanctioned it on oath. It cannot be a treaty
and yet no treaty, a bargain and yet no promise. If it is a pro
mise, I am not to read a lecture to shew, why an honest man
will keep his promise.

THE reason of the thing, and the words of the resolution of
the house, imply, that the United States engage their good
faith in a treaty. We disclaim, say the majority, the treaty-
making power, we of course disclaim (they ought to say)
eveiy doctrine, that would put a negative upon the doings of
that power. It is the prerogative of folly alone to maintain
both sides of the proposition. '<»„

WILL any man affirm, the American nation is engaged by
good faith to the British nation ; but that engagement is no
thing to this house ? Such a man is not to be reasoned with.
Such a doctrine is a coat of mail, that would turn the edge of
all the weapons of argument, if they were sharper than a
sword. Will it be imagined the king of Great Britain and the
president are mutually bound by the treaty ; but the two nations
are free ?

IT is one thing for this house to stand in a position, that pre
sents an opportunity to break the faith of America, and another
to establish a principle that will justify the deed.

WE feel less repugnance to believe, that any other body is
bound by obligation than our own. There is not a man here,

£8 SPEECH ON THE

who does not say that G eat Britain is bound by treaty. Bring;
it nearer home. Is the senate bound ? Just as much as the
house and no more. Suppose the senate, as part of the treaty
power, by ratifying a treaty on Monday, pledges the publick
faith to do a certain act. Then, in their ordinary capacity as a
branch of the legislature, the senate is called upon on Tuesday
to perform that act, for example, an appropriation of money,
is the senate (so lately under obligation) now free to agree or
disagree to the act ? If the twenty ratifying senators should rise
up and avow this principle, saying, we struggle for liberty,
we will not be cyphers, mere puppets, and give their votes
accordingly, would not shame blister their tongues, would not
infamy tingle in their ears, would not their country, which
they had insulted and dishonoured, though it should be silent
and forgiving, be a revolutionary tribunal, a rack, on which
their own reflections would stretch them ?

THIS, sir, is a cause, that would be dishonuured and betray
ed, if I contented myself with appealing only to the understand
ing. It is too cold, and its processes are too slow for the
occasion. I desire to thank God, that, since he has given me
an intellect so fallible, he has impressed upon me an instinct
that is sure. On a question of shame and honour, reasoning is
sometimes useless, and worse. I feel the decision in my
pulse : if it throws no light upon the brain, it kindles a fire at
the heart.

IT is not easy to deny, it is impossible to doubt, that a treaty
imposes an obligation on the American nation. It would be
childish to consider the president and senate obliged, and the
nation and house free. What is the obligation ? perfect or
imperfect ? If perfect, the debate is brought to a conclusion.
If imperfect, how large a part of our faith is pawned ? Is half
our honour put at risk, and is that half too cheap to be redeem
ed ? How long has this hair-splitting subdivision of good faith
been discovered, and why has it escaped the researches of the
writers on the law of nations ? Shall we add a new chapter to
that law ; or insert this doctrine as a supplement to, or more
properly a repeal of the ten commandments ?

BRITISH TREATY. 79

THE principles and the example of the British parliament
have been alleged to coincide with the doctrine of those, who
deny the obligation of the treaty. I have not had the health to
make very laborious researches into this subject ; I will, how
ever, sketch my view of it. Several instances have been
noticed ; but the treaty of Utrecht is the only one that seems to
be at all applicable. It has been answered, that the conduct of
parliament in that celebrated example affords no sanction to
our refusal to carry the treaty into effect. The obligation of the
treaty of Utrecht has been understood to depend on the con
currence of parliament, as a condition to its becoming of force.
If that opinion should, however, appear incorrect, still the prece
dent proves, not that the treaty of Utrecht wanted obligation,
but that parliament disregarded it : a proof, not of the construc
tion of the treaty -making power, but of the violation of a nation
al engagement. Admitting still further, that the parliament
claimed and exercised its power, not as a breach of faith, but
as a matter of constitutional right, I reply that the analogy
between parliament and congress totally fails. The nature of
the British government may require and justify a course of
proceeding in respect to treaties, that is unwarrantable here.

THE British government is a mixed one. The king at the
head of the army, of the hierarchy, with an ample civil list,
hereditary, unresponsible, and possessing the prerogative of
peace and war, may be properly observed with some jealousy,
in respect to the exercise of the treaty-making power. It seems,
and perhaps from a spirit of caution on this account, to he
their doctrine, that treaties bind the nation, but are not to be
regarded by the courts of law, until laws have been passed
conformably to them. Our constitution has expressly regulat
ed the matter differently. The concurrence of parliament is
necessary to treaties becoming laws in England, gentlemen
say ; and here the senate, representing the states, must concur
in treaties. The constitution, and the reason of the case make
the concurrence of the senate as effectual as the sanction of
parliament ; and why not ? The senate is an elective body, and
the approbation of a majority of the states affords the nation

SO SPEECH ON THE

as ample security against the abuse of the treaty -making power,
as the British nation can enjoy in the controul of parliament.

WHATEVER doubt there may be as to the parliamentary
doctrine of the obligation of treaties in Great Britain, (and
perhaps there is some) there is none in their books, or their
modern practice. Blackstone represents treaties as of the
highest obligation, when ratified by the king : and for almost
a centuiy, there has been no instance of opposition by parlia
ment to this doctrine. Their treaties have been uniformly
carried into effect, although many have been ratified of a
nature most obnoxious to party, and have produced a louder
clamour than we have lately witnessed. The example of Eng
land, therefore, fairly examined, does not warrant, it dissuades
us from a negative vote.

GENTLEMEN have said, with spirit, whatever the true doctrine
of our constitution may be, Great Britain has no right to com
plain or to dictate an interpretation : the sense of the American
nation, as to the treaty power, is to be received by all foreign
nations. This is very true as a maxim ; but the fact is against
those who vouch it : the sense of the American nation is NOT
as the vote of the house has declared it. Our claim to some
agency in giving force and obligation to treaties, is beyond all
kind of controversy NOVEL. The sense of the nation is probably
against it : the sense of the government certainly is. The pre
sident denies it on constitutional grounds, and therefore cannot
ever accede to our interpretation. The senate ratified the.
treaty, and cannot without dishonour adopt it, as I have
attempted to shew. Where then do they find the proof, that
this is the American sense of the treaty-making power, which
is to silence the murmurs of Great Britain ? Is it because a
majority of two or three, or, at the most, four or five of this
house will reject the treaty ? Is it thus the sense of our nation
is to be recognised ? Our government may thus be stopped
in its movements : a struggle for power may thus commence,
and the event of the conflict may decide, who is the victor, and
the quiet possessor of the treaty power. But, at present, it is
beyond all credibility, that our vote by a bare majority, should

BRITISH TREATY. 81

be believed to do any thing better than to embitter our divisions,
and to tear up the settled foundations of our departments.

IF the obligation of a treaty be complete, I am aware that
cases sometimes exist, which will justify a nation in refusing
a compliance. Are our liberties, gentlemen demand, to be bar~
iered away by a treaty, and is there no remedy ? There is.
Extremes are not to be supposed ; but, when they happen,
they make the law for themselves. No such extreme cun be
pretended in this instance ; and, if it existed, the authority it
would confer to throw off the obligation would rest where the
obligation itself resides, in the nation. This house is not the
nation ; it is not the whole delegated authority of the nation.
Beiii£ only a part of that authority-, its right to act for the whole
society obviously depends on the concurrence of the other two
branches. If they reluse to concur, a treaty once made re
mains of full force, although a breach on the part of the for
eign nation would confer upon our own a right to forbear the
execution. I repeat it, even in that case, the act of this house
cannot be admitted as the act of the nation ; and if the president
and senate should not concur, the treaty would be obligatory.
I PUT a case that will not fail to produce conviction. Our
treaty with France engages, that free bottoms shall make free
goods ; and how has it been kept ? As such engagements will
ever be in time of war. France has set it aside, and pleads
imperious necessity. We have no navy to enforce the obser
vance of such articles, and paper barriers are weak against the
violence of those, who are on the scramble for enemy's goods
on the high seas. The breach of any article of the treaty by
one nation gives an undoubted right to the other to renounce
the whole treaty. But has one branch of the government that
right, or must it reside with the whole authority of the nation ?
What if the senate should resolve, that the French treaty is
broken, and therefore null and of no effect ? The answer is
obvious ; you would deny their sole authority. That branch of
the legislature has equal power, in this regard, with the house
of representatives : one branch alone cannot express the will

of the nation.

11

82 SPEECH ON THE

A RIGHT to annul a treaty, because a foreign nation has
broken its articles, is only like the case of a sufficient cause to
repeal a law. In both cases, the branches of our government
must concur in the orderly way, or the law and the treaty will
remain.

THE very cases supposed by my adversaries in this argu
ment, conclude against themselves. They will persist in con
founding ideas, that should be kept distinct ; they will suppose,
that the house of representatives has no power unless it has all
power : the house is nothing, if it be not the whole government,
the nation.

ON every hypothesis, therefore, the conclusion is not to be
resisted : we are either to execute this treaty, or break our faith.

To expatiate on the value of publick faith may pass with some
men for declamation : to such men I have nothing to say. To
others I will urge, can any circumstance mark upon a people
more turpitude and debasement ? Can any thing tend more to
make men think themselves mean, or degrade to a lower point
their estimation of virtue and their standard of action ? It would
not merely demoralize mankind ; it tends to break all the liga
ments of society, to dissolve that mysterious charm which
attracts individuals to the nation, and to inspire in its stead a
repulsive sense of shame and disgust.

WHAT is patriotism ? Is it a narrow affection for the spot
where a man was born ? Are the very clods where we tread
entitled to this ardent preference, because they are greener ?
No, sir, this is not the character of the virtue, and it soars
higher for its object. It is an extended self-love, mingling
with all the enjoyments of life, -and twisting itself with the
minutest filaments of the heart. It is thus we obey the laws
of society, because they are the laws of virtue. In their author
ity we see, not the array of force and terrour, but the venera
ble image of our country's honour. Every good citizen makes
that honour his own, und cherishes it not only as precious, but
as sacred. He is willing to risk his life in its defence ; and is
" conscious that he gains protection, while he t;ives it. For what
rights of a citizen will be deemed inviolable, when a state

BRITISH TREATY. 83

renounces the principles that constitute their security ? Or, if
his life should not be invaded, what would its enjoyments be in
a country odious in the eyes of strangers, and dishonoured in
his own ? Could he look with affection and veneration to such
a country as his parent ? The sense of having one would die
within him ; he would blush for his patriotism, if he retained
any, and justly, for it would be a vice : he would be a ban
ished man in his native land.

I SEE no exception to the respect that is paid among na
tions to the law of good faith. If there are cases in this enlight
ened period when it is violated, there are none when it is decri
ed. It is the philosophy of politicks, the religion of govern
ments. It is observed by barbarians : a whiff of tobacco smoke,
or a string of beads, gives not merely binding force, but sanc
tity to treaties. Even in Algiers, a truce may be bought for
money ; but, when ratified, even Algiers is too wise or too
just to disown and annul its obligation. Thus we see, neither
the ignorance of savages, nor the principles of an association
for piracy and rapine, permit a nation to despise its engage
ments. If, sir, there could be a resurrection from the foot of
the gallows, if the victims of justice could live again, collect
together and form a society, they would, however loath, soon
find themselves obliged to make justice, that justice under
which they fell, the fundamental law of their state. They
would perceive it was their interest to make others respect,
and they would therefore soon pay some respect themselves to
the obligations of good faith.

IT is painful, I hope it is superfluous, to make even the
supposition, that America should furnish the occasion of this
opprobrium. No, let me not even imagine, that a republican
government, sprung, as our own is, from a people enlightened
and uncorrupted, a government whose origin is right, and
whose daily discipline is duty, can, upon solemn debate, make
its option to be faithless ; can dare to act what despots dare not
avow, what our own example evinces the states of Barbary are
unsuspected of. No, let me rather make the supposition, that
Great Britain refuses to execute the treaty, after we have done

64 SPEECH ON THE

every thing to carry it into effect. Is there any language of
reproach pungent enough to express your commentary on the
fact ? What would you say, or, rather, what would you not say ?
Would you not tell them, wherever an Englishman might
travel, shame would stick to him : he would disown his coun-
try. You would exclaim, England, proud of your wealth, and
arrogant in the possession of power, blush for these distinc
tions, which become the vehicles of your dishonour. Such a
nation might, truly say to corruption, thou art my father, and to
the worm, thou art my mother and my sister. We should say
of such a race of men, their name is a heavier burden than
their debt. -^

I CAN scarcely persuade myself to believe, that the consider
ation I have suggested requires the aid of any auxiliary ; but,
unfortunately, auxiliary arguments are at hand. Five millions
of dollars, and probably more, on the score of spoliations com
mitted on our commerce, depend upon the treaty : the treaty
offers the only prospect of indemnity. Such r.edress is promis
ed as the merchants place some confidence in. Will you inter
pose and frustrate thut hope, leaving to many families nothing
but beggary and despair ? It is a smooth proceeding to take a
vote in this body : it takes less than half an hour to call the
yeas and nays, and reject the treaty. But what is the effect of
it ? What but this : the very men, formerly so loud for redress,
such fierce champions, that even to ask for justice was too
mean and too slow, now turn their capricious fury upon the
sufferers, and say, by their vote, to them and their families,
no longer eat bread : petitioners go home and starve : we can
not satisfy your wrongs, und our resentments.

WTILL you pay the sufferers out of the treasury ? No. The
answer was given two years ago, and appears on our journals.
Will you give them letters of marque and reprisal, to pay
themselves by force ? No. That is war. Besides it would be
an opportunity for those who have already lost much, to lose
more. Will you go to war to avenge their injury ? If you do,
the war will leave you no money to indemnify them. If it
should be unsuccessful, you will aggravate existing evils : if

BRITISH TREATY. 85

successful, your enemy will have no treasure left to give our
merchants: the first losses will be confounded with much
greater, and be forgotten. At the end of a war there must be
a negociation, which is the very point we have already gained:
and why relinquish it ? And who will be confident, that the
terms of the negociation, after a desolating war, would be
more acceptable to another house of representatives than the
treaty before us ? Members and opinions may be so changed,
that the treaty would then be rejected for being what the pre
sent majority say it should be. Whether we shall go on making
treaties and refusing to execute them, I know not : of this 1
am certain, it will be very difficult to exercise the treaty-mak
ing power on the new principle, with much reputation or
advantage to the country.

""THE refusal of the posts (inevitable if we reject the treaty)
is a measure too decisive in its nature to be neutral in its con
sequences. From great causes we are to look for great
effects. A plain and obvious one will be, the price of the
Western lands will fall : settlers will not choose to fix their habi
tation on a field of battle. Those who talk so much of the
interest of the United States should calculate, how deeply it
will be affected by rejecting the treaty ; how vast a tract of
wild land will almost cease to be property. This loss, let it
be observed, will fall upon a fund expressly devoted to sink
the national debt. What then are we called upon to do ?
However the form of the vote and the protestations of many may
disguise the proceeding, our resolution is in substance, and it
deserves to wear the title of a resolution, to prevent the sale
of the Western lands and the discharge of the publick debt.

WILL the tendency to Indian hostilities be contested by any
one ? Experience gives the answer. The frontiers were
scourged with war, until the negociation with Great Britain was
far advanced ; and then the state of hostility ceased. Perhaps
ihe publick agents of both nations are innocent of fomenting
the Indian war, and perhaps they are not. \Ve ought not,
however, to expect that neighbouring nations, highly irritated
against each other, will neglect the friendship of the savages.

86 SPEECH ON THE

The traders will gain an infiueace, and will abuse it ; and who
is ignorant that their passions are easily raised and hardly
restrained from violence ? Their situation will oblige them to
choose between this country and Great Britain, in case the
treaty should be rejected : they will not be our friends, and at
the same time the friends of our enemies.

BUT am I reduced to the necessity of proving this point \
Certainly the very men who charged the Indian war on the
detention of the posts, will call for no other proof than the
recital of their own speeches. It is remembered, with what
emphasis, with what acrimony, they expatiated on the burden
of taxes, <*nd the drain of blood and treasure into the Western
country, in consequence of Britain's holding the posts. Until
the posts are restored, they exclaimed, the treasury and the
frontiers must bleed.

IF any, against all these proofs, should maintain, that the
peace with the Indians will be stable without the posts, to them
I will urge another reply. From arguments calculated to pro
duce conviction, I will appeal directly to the hearts of those
who hear me, and ask whether it is not already planted there ?
I resort especially to the convictions of the Western gentle
men, whether, supposing no posts and no treaty, the settlers
will remain in security ? Can they take it upon them to say,
that an Indian peace, under these circumstances, will prove
firm ? No, sir, it will not be peace, but a sword ; it will be no
better than a lure to draw victims within the reach of the
tomahawk.

ON this theme, my emotions are unutterable. If I could
find words for them, if my powers bore any proportion to my
zeal, I would swell my voice to such a note of remonstrance)
it should reach every log-house beyond the mountains. I would
v say to the inhabitants, wake from your false security : your
cruel dangers, your more cruel apprehensions are soon to be
renewed : the wounds, yet unhealed, are to be torn open again :
in the day time, your path through the woods will be ambush
ed ; the darkness of midnight will glitter with- the blaze of
your dwellings. You arc a father — the blood of your sons shall

BRITISH TREATY. 87"

fatten your corn-field : you are a mother—the war hoop shall
wake the sleep of the cradle.

ON this subject you need not suspect any deception on your
feelings : it is a spectacle of horrour, which cannot be over
drawn. If you have nature in your hearts, they will speak a
language, compared with which all I have said or can say will
be poor and frigid, y

WILL it be whispered, that the treaty has made me a new
champion for the protection of the frontiers. It is known, that
my voice as well as vote have been uniformly given in confor
mity with the ideas I have expressed. Protection is the right
of the frontiers ; it .is our duty to give it.

WHO will accuse me of wandering out of the subject ? Who
will say, that I exaggerate the tendencies of our measures ?
Will any one answer by a sneer, that all this is idle preaching.
Will any one deny, that we are bound, and I would hope to
good purpose, by the most solemn sanctions of duty for the
vote we give ? Are despots alone to be reproached for unfeel
ing indifference to the tears and blood of their subjects ? Are
republicans unresponsible ? Have the principles, on which you
ground the reproach upon cabinets and kings, no practical
influence, no binding force ? Are they merely themes of idle
declamation, introduced to decorate the morality of a news
paper essay, or to furnish pretty topicks of harangue from the
windows of that state-house ? I trust it is neither too presump
tuous nor too late to ask : Can you put the dearest interest of
society at risk, without guilt, and without remorse ?

IT is vain to offer as an excuse, that pubiick men are not
to be reproached for the evils that may happen to ensue from
their measures. This is very true, where they are unforeseen
or inevitable. Those I have depicted are not unforeseen :
they are so far from inevitable, we are going to bring them
Into being by our vote : we choose the consequences, and
become as justly answerable for them, as for the measure that
we know will produce them.

BY rejecting the posts, we light the savage fires, we bind
the victims. This day we undertake to render account to the

88 SPEECH ON THE

widows and orphans whom our decision \vill make, to the
wretches that will be roasted at the stake, to our country, and
I do not deem it too serious to say, to conscience and to God.
We are answerable ; and if duty be any thing more than a
word of imposture, if conscience be not a bugbear, we are pre
paring to make ourselves as wretched as our country.

THERE is no mistake in this cuse, there can be none : ex
perience has already been the prophet of events, and the cries
of our future victims have already reached us. The Western
inhabitants are not a silent and uncomplaining sacrifice. The
voice of humanity issues from the shade of the wilderness : it
exclaims, that, while one hand is held up to reject this treaty,
the other grasps a tomahawk. It summons our imagination
to the scenes that will open. It is no great effort of the
imagination to conceive that events so near are already begun.
I can fancy that I listen to the yells of savage vengeance and
the shrieks of torture : already they seem to sigh in the Western
wind ; already they mingle with every echo from the moun
tains.

IT is not the part of prudence to be inattentive to the ten
dencies of measures : where there is any ground to fear that
these will be pernicious, wisdom and duty forbid that we should
tinder-rate them. If we reject the treaty, will our peace be
as safe as if we execute it with good faith ? I do honour to the
intrepid spirit of those who say it will. It was formerly un
derstood to constitute the excellence of a man's faith, to believe
without evidence and against it.

BUT, as opinions on this article are changed, and we are
called to act for our countiy, it becomes us to explore the
dangers that will attend its peace, and avoid them if we can.
Few of us here, and fewer still in proportion of our constituents,
will doubt, that, by rejecting, all those dangers will be aggra
vated.

THE idea of war is treated as a bugbear. This levity is at
least unseasonable, and most of all unbecoming some who
resort to it. Who has forgotten the phiiippicks of 1794 ? The
cry then was, reparation ; no envoy ; no treaty ; no tedious

BRITISH TREATY. 8?

ilelays. Now it seems the passion subsides, or at least the
huny to satisfy it. Great Britain, say they, will not wage war
upon us.

IN 1794, it was urged by those who now say, no war, that,
if we built frigates, or resisted the piracies of Algiers, we
could not expect peace. Now they give excellent comfort-
truly. Great Britain has seized our vessels and cargoes to the
amount of millions ; she holds the posts ; she interrupts our
trade, say they, as a neutral nation ; and these gentlemen,
formerly so fierce for redress, assure us, in terms of the
sweetest consolation, Great Britain will bear all this patiently-
But let me ask the late champions of our rights, will our na
tion bear it ? Let others exult because the aggressor will let
our wrongs sleep for ever. Will it add, it is my duty to ask,
to the patience and quiet of our citizens to see their rights
abandoned ? Will not the disappointment of their hopes, so
long patronised by the government, now in the crisis of their
being realized, convert all their passions into fury and despair ?

ARE the posts to remain for ever in the possession of Great
Britain ? Let those who reject them, when the treaty offers them
to our hands, say, if they choose, they are of no importance.
If they are, will they take them by force ? The/ argument I am
urging would then come to a point. To use force is war ; ta
talk of treaty again is too absurd : the posts and redress must
come from voluntary good will, treaty, or war. The conclu
sion is plain : if the state of peace shall continue, so will the.
British possession of the posts.

LOOK again at this state of things: on the sea coast, vast
losses uncompensated ; on the frontier, Indian war, and actual
encroachment on our territory ; every where discontent ; re
sentments tenfold more fierce because they will be impotent
and humbled ; national discord and abasement. The disputes
of the old treaty of 1783, being left to rankle, will revive the
almost extinguished animosities of that period. Wars in all
countries, and most of all in such as are free, arise from the
impetuosity of the public feelings. The despotism of Turkey
is often obliged by clamour to unsheath the sword. War-
12

90 SPEECH ON THE

might perhaps be delayed, but could not be prevented: the
causes of it would remain, would be aggravated, would be
multiplied, and soon become intolerable. More captures,
more impressments would swell the list of our wrongs, and
the current of our rage. I muke no calculation of the arts of
those whose employment it has been, on former occasions, to
fan the fire ; I say nothing of the foreign money and emissaries
that might foment the spirit of hostility, because the state of
things will naturally run to violence : with less than their
former exertion, they would be successful.
X WILL our government be able to temper and restrain the
turbulence of such a crisis ? The government, alas ! will be
in no capacity to govern. A divided people, and divided
counsels ! Shall we cherish the spirit of peace, or shew the
energies of war ? Shall we make our adversary afraid of our
strength, or dispose him, by the measures of resentment and
broken faith, to respect our rights ? Do gentlemen rely on the
state of peace, because both nations will be worse disposed to
keep it ? because injuries, and insults still harder to endure,
"will be mutually offered ? V

SUCH a state of things will exist, if we should long avoid
war, as will be worse than war : peace without security, ac
cumulation of injury without redress, or the hope of it, resent
ment against the aggressor, contempt for ourselves, intestine
discord, and anarchy. Worse than this need not be appre
hended, for if worse could happen, anarchy would bring it. Is
this the peace gentlemen undertake, with such fearless confi
dence, to maintain ? Is this the station of American dignity,
which the high-spirited champions of our national independence
and honour could endure ; nay, which they are anxious and
almost violent to seize for the country ? What is there in the
treaty that could humble us so low ? Are they the men to
swallow their resentments^ who so lately were choking with
them ? If in the case contemplated'by them, it should be peace,
I do not hesitate to declare, it ought not to be peace.

Is there any thing in the prospect of the interiour state of
the country, to encourage us to aggravate the dangers of a

BRITISH TREATY. 91

war ? Would not the shock of that evil produce another, and
shake down the feeble and then unbraced structure of our
government ? Is this a chimera ? Is it going off* the ground of
matter of fact to say, the rejection of the appropriation proceeds
upon the doctrine of a civil war of the departments. Two
branches have ratified a treaty ; and we are going to set it aside.
How is this disorder in the machine to be rectified ? While it
exists, its movements must stop ; and when we talk of a
remedy, is that any other than the formidable one of a revolu
tionary interposition of the people ? And is this, in the judg
ment even of my opposers, to execute, to preserve the con
stitution, and the publick order ? Is this the state of hazard, if
not of convulsion, which they can have the courage to contem
plate and to brave ; or beyond which their penetration can
reach and see the issue ? They seem to believe, and they act
as if they believed, that our union, our peace, our liberty, are
invulnerable and immortal ; as if our happy state was not to be
disturbed by our dissentions, and that we are not capable of
falling from it by our unworthiness. Some of them have no
doubt better nerves and better discernment than mine. They
can see the bright aspects and happy consequences of all this
army of horrours. They can see intestine discords, our govern
ment disorganized, our wrongs aggravated, multiplied and un-
redressed, peace with dishonour, or war without justice, union
or resources, in " the calm lights of mild philosophy."

BUT whatever they may anticipate as the next measure of
prudence and safety, they have explained nothing to the house.
After rejecting the treaty, what is to be the next step ? They
must have foreseen what ought to be done ; they have doubt
less resolved what to propose. Why then are they silent ?
Dare they not now avow their plan of conduct, or do they wait
until our progress towards confusion shall guide them in
forming it ?

LET me cheer the mind, weary no doubt and ready to
despond on this prospect, by presenting another which it is
yet in our power to realize. Is it possible for a real American
to look at the prosperity of this country? without some desire

,

92 SPEECH ON THK

for its continuance, without some respect for the measures
which, many will say, produced, and all will confess have pre
served it? Will he not feel some dread, that a change of
system will reverse the scene ? The well grounded fears of our
citizens, in 1794, were removed by the treaty, but are not
forgotten. Then they deemed war nearly inevitable, and
Would not this adjustment have been considered at that day a&
a happy escape from the calamity ? The great interest and the
general desire of our people was to enjoy the advantages of
neutrality. This instrument, however misrepresented, affords
America that inestimable security. The causes of our dis
putes are either cut up by the roots, or referred to a new
negociation, after the end of the European war. This was
gaining every thing, because it confirmed our neutrality, by
which our citizens are gaining every thing. This alone would
justify the engagements of the government. / For, when the
fiery vapours of the war lowered in the skirts of our horizon,
all our wishes were concentred in this one, that we might
escape the desolation of the storm. This treaty, like a rain
bow on the edge of the cloud, marked to our eyes the space
where it was raging, and afforded at the same time the sure
prognostick of fair weather. If we reject it, the vivid colours
will grow pale, it will be a baleful meteor portending tempest
and war. V

LET us not hesitate then to agree to the appropriation to
cany it into faithful execution. Thus we shall save the faith
of our nation, secure its peace, and diffuse the spirit of
dence and enterprise that will augment its prosperty.
progress of wealth and improvement is wonderful, and some
will think, too rapid. The field for exertion is fruitful and
vast, and if peace and good government should be preserved,
the acquisitions of our citizens are not so pleasing as the
proofs of their industry, as the instruments of their future
success. The rewards of exertion go to augment its power.
Profit is every hour becoming capital. The vast crop of our
neutrality is all seed wheat, and is sown again, to swell, almost
beyond calculation, the future harvest of prosperity. In this

BRITISH TREATY. 93

progress what seems to be fiction is found to fall short of
experience^

I ROSE to speak under impressions that I would have re
sisted if I could. Those who see me will believe, that the
reduced stute of my health has unfitted me, almost equally,
for much exertion of body or mind. Unprepared for debate
by careful reflection in my retirement, or by long attention
here, I thought the resolution I had taken, to sit silent, was
imposed by necessity, and would cost me no effort to maintain.
With a mind thus vacant of ideas, and sinking, as I really am,
under a sense of weakness, I imagined the very desire of
speaking was extinguished by the persuasion that I had nothing
to say. Yet when I come to the moment of deciding the vote,
I start back with dread from the edge ofjrtie^^nto which we
are plunging? Tft my view, even the minutes I have spent in
expostulation have their value, because they protract the
crisis, and the short period in which alone we may resolve to
escape it.

I HAVE thus been led by my feelings to speak more at
length than I had intended. Yet I have perhaps as little
personal interest in the event as any one here. There is, I
believe, no member, who will not think his chance to be a
witness of the consequences greater than mine. If, however,
the vote should pass to reject, and a spirit should rise, as it
will, with the publick disorders to make " confusion worse
confounded," even I, slender and almost broken as my hold
upon life is, may outlive the government and constitution of
my country.

C 94 ]
LAOCOOX, N°.I.

First publislted in tfie Boston Gazette, April, 1799.

In the two following essays the party aiming to subvert the federal cause and administrat'on,
are termed jacobins. "All who from credulity, envy, angtr, and pride, from ambition or
* cupidity, urj impatient under the restra;nts, or impatient for the trappings of power,"
are arranged in one general class, and denominated from that portion of .it, which the
authour considered most dangerous. In the other parts of his writings, he admits a difference
in the character of those who compose a faction in a republican government. A democrat
believes in the success of impossible experiments, and that it is easy to govern without a
government. A jacobin, void of this credulity himself, seizes upon it in others, and uses
it as a powerful instrument of h's 'unbitlon. But they all reason, act, and feel, in a manner
unfavourable to a truly republican system, of which the permanent puWick good is the
proper object and result. Hence he insisted, that there are essent'-ally but two divis;ons of
the active citizens, the federal or republican, and the democrat ck or jacobin party. At
the time Laocoon wr.s writti n, the leaders of the democratick party were making despe
rate efforts to bring federal or true republican principles, measures, and men. into hatred ;
their spirit of falsehood and bitter malignity, excited the abhorrence of the writer, while
the apathy and presumption of the friends of government shocked and dismayed him.
Writing under such impressions and feelings ; indignant at the hypocritical and audacious
pretensions of false patriotism, and agitated and overwhelmed by the foresight of the ruin
that would follow the dowufal of the federal system, he does not mark the grades of deme
rit in those against whom he inve jhs. He speaks of the party generally under the name
of those guides and masters, by whom it is combined, animated, directed, and employed,

labour has been recently bestowed on the proposition
that the sect of jacobins is not to be converted, and in enforc
ing the obvious duty on all honest men to unite with energy
to resist them. This alarm, it will be objected, is for ever
sounding ; and it is replied, for ever sounding to the deaf.
Honest men, it is allowed, reasonably expect to enjoy tran
quillity under the protection of government ; instead of which, it
is not denied, that they are incessantly summoned to their
posts, to afford to government the protection they had hoped
it would be in a condition to bestow. The cry of danger dis
turbs their beloved and promised ease, disappoints their fond
hopes, disgraces their splendid theories, and saddens that futu
rity which fancy had adorned like the millenium. To the
inhabitants of a besieged town fatigue renders repose more wel
come and more necessary ; the roar of cannon does not awake
them. Familiar dangers lose half their terrour, and we yield,

LAOCOON. 95

with a weakness which we will not detect and cannot resist, to
the delusions of every rumour without evidence, and every hope
that rises up to console us against it. The federalist rises like
the sluggard from his bed at the cry of fire, hoping that a little
more water will quench it, and that he may then return to sleep
undisturbed. It is not easy, perhaps it is not possible, to make
the citizens political soldiers, to persuade them to sleep on
their arms, ready at the beat of drum, to repel the assaults of
the jacobins, on law and liberty. It will even sink their esti
mate of the value of civil liberty, to know that it gives joy,
gives safety, honour, gives every thing but sleep. They will
be apt, in obedience to the suggestions of spleen and weariness,
to say, that the single thing it denies is worth more than the
million it bestows, and joyfully to embrace a political condi
tion, which would somewhat abate the pretension of each indi
vidual to be a sovereign, and require a less painful effort to
maintain it.

IT is, indeed, exceedingly obvious, that many, if not most
persdiis have chosen the state of the highest liberty, without
having counted how much it must cost to preserve it. The
calumnies vented against president ADAMS'S book, are signal
proofs of the crude and indocile state of popular opinion
amongst us. He has ingeniously described evils and faithful
ly and wisely pointed out their remedies : yet he is accused of
being no friend to republicks, because he well understands
their nature, and seriously dreads their dangers. The very
factions who create and aggravate those dangers, and who
neither understand nor desire those remedies, honour their
own ignorance with the name of principle, and claim for their
licentiousness the exclusive title of republicanism. If it fails,
it is they who will make it fail. The impediments to its suc
cess, which arise from the structure of the human heart, create
surfirise, though they were obviously inevitable, and some
thing like despair, though we know that they may be sur
mounted.

Faction will freedom, like i*s shade, pursue ;

Vet, like the shadow, proves the substance true.

9 LAOCOON.

WE have to sustain an everlasting conflict with faction* a
foe, destined to be the companion of liberty, and, at last, its
assassin. However we may flatter ourselves with the idea, that
our blows will prove fatal to this foe, yet, though smitten to the
ground, it will rise again like Anteus, untired, invulnerable,
and immortal. Nothing can more strikingly illustrate the
folly of the jacobins, in their pretensions to a superiour vigi
lance for the people, than the natural and indeed experienced
tendency of their turbulence to strengthen the powers of gov
ernment. The danger these men create, must be repelled by
arming our rulers with force enough, and appointing them to
watch in our stead. Thus good citizens find, that they must
submit to laws of the more rigour, because the desperate licen
tiousness and wickedness of the bad, could not be otherwise
Restrained. If the laws they complain of really abridge liberty,
as they pretend, which, however, is positively denied, it is their
own wickedness that has supplied to government the pretext,
and varnished it over with the appearance of necessity. Quiet,
satisfied people, need the least law ; but as the jacobins are of
a very different character, it is clear that all the fruit of their
perverseness must be to abridge the liberty of the people ; and
this too if they fail of success. But if they should prevail, the
people would be crushed, as in France, under tyranny more
vindictive, unfeeling, and rapacious, than that of Tiberius, Nero,
or Caligula, or any single despot that ever existed. The rage
of one man will be tired by repetition of outrage, or it may be
eluded by art or by flight. It seldom smites the obscure, who
arc, many, but, like a gust, uproots chiefly the great trees that
overtop the forest. A mobocracy, however, is always usurped
by the worst men in the most corrupt times ; in a period of
violence by the most violent. It is a Briareus with a thousand
hands, each bearing a dagger ; a Cerberus gaping with ten thou
sand throats, all parched and thirsting for fresh blood. It is
a genuine tyranny, but of all the least durable, yet the most
destructive while it lasts. The power of a despot, like the
ardour of a summer's sun, dries up the grass, but the roots
remain fresh in the soil; a mob-government, like a West-

LAOCOON. 97

India hurricane, instantly strews the fruitful earth with promis
cuous ruins, and turns the sky yellow with pestilence. Men
inhale a vapour like the Sirocco, and die in the open air for
want of respiration. It 'is a winged curse that envelops the
obscure as well as the distinguished, and is wafted into the lurk
ing places of the fugitives. It is not doing justice to licentious
ness, to compare it to a wind which ravages the surface of the
earth ; it is an earthquake that loosens its foundations, burying
in an hour the accumulated wealth and wisdom of ages. Those3
who, after the calamity, would reconstruct the edifice of the
publick liberty, will be scarely able to find the model of the arti
ficers, or even the ruins. Mountains have split and filled the
fertile vallies, covering them with rocks and gravel ; rivers have
changed their beds ; populous towns have sunk, leaving only
frightful chasms, out of which are creeping the remnant of
living wretches, the monuments and the victims of despair.
This is no exaggerated description. Behold France, that open
hell, still ringing with agonies and blasphemies, still smoking
with sufferings and crimes, in which we see their state of tor
ment, and perhaps our future state. There we see the wretch
edness and degradation of a people, who once had the offer of
liberty, but have trifled it away ; and there we have seen crimes
so monstrous, that, even after we" know they have been perpe
trated, they still seem incredible.

IF, however, the real people will wake, when their own
government is in danger ; if like a body of minute-men they
will rally in its defence, we may long preserve our excellent
system unimpaired in the degree of its liberty ; we may pre
serve every thing but our tranquillity.

IT is however difficult, if not impossible, to excite and main
tain as much zeal and ardour in defence of government, as
will animate the jacobins for its subversion ; for to them action
is ease, to us it is effort : to be at rest costs them more con
straint, than us to stir. The machinery of our zeal is wrought
by a feeble and intermitting momentum, and is impeded by its
own friction ; their rage beats like the pulse of life, and to
stop it would be mortal. Like the whirlwind it clears away
13

98 LAOCOON.

obstacles, and gathers speed in its progress. Any great exer
tion not only tires, but disgusts the federalists : their spirit,
after flaming brightly, soon sleeps in its embers ; but the jaco
bins, like salamanders, can breathe only in fire. Like toads,
they suck no aliment from the earth but its poisons. When
they rest in their lurking places, as they did after the publica
tion of the despatches, it is, like serpents in winter, the better
to concoct their venom ; and when they are in action, it is to
shed it. Without digressing to make an analysis of the jaco
bin character, whether it is envy that sickens at the fame of
superiours, cupidity that seeks political power for the sake of
plunder, or ambition that considers plunder as the instrument
to get power ; whether their characters are formed by the weak
facility of their faith, or their faith determined by the sour,
malignant, and suspicious cast of their temperament, yet all
agree in this one point, all are moved by some fixed prejudice
or strong passion, some powerful spring of action, so blended
with self-interest, or self-love, and so exalted into fanaticism,
that the ordinary powers of the man, and the extraordinary
powers conferred on the enthusiast, are equally devoted to
their cause of anarchy. Hatred of the government becomes
a mania, a dementia quoad Aoc, and their dread of all power but
their own, resembles the hydrophobia, baffling our attempts to
describe its nature or its remedies. These are the fanaticks
whom the federalists must oppose ; and what in common times
is to excite their zeal and secure the constancy of their opposi
tion ? A sense of duty, which a few men of abstraction will
deduce from just principles, and the foresight of a few more,
who will be terrified by the tendencies of democracy to anar
chy ? But sober duty and a timorous forecast are feeble antag
onists against jacobinism ; it is flat tranquillity against passion ;
dry leaves against the whirlwind ; the weight of gun powder
against, its kindled force. Such federalists may serve as wea
thercocks to show how the wind blows, but are no shelter
against its violence. The quiet citizens may be compared to
the still water in the lake ; the acobins to that part of it which
fails over a cataract at its outlet : the former having a thousand

LAOCOON. 99

times the greatest mass, but no energy, and scarcely motion
enough to keep it sweet ; the latter dashed into foam, and
scooping deeper channels in the rocks of adamant. To
weight we must impart motion ; correct good sense must
acquire the energy of zeal. A score of absurd cant opinions
must be scouted, all which tend to make us like the jacobin
designs a little more, and to dread and abhor their agents a
little less. Take a specimen of the proselyting logick : the
jacobins, they tell us, are many of them honest men, but misled.
Whether they will long remain honest, yet the associates of
knaves and their fellow workers of iniquity, may be doubted.
If the invectives against those, who insist on being called
honest, among the jacobins, are " too harsh and acrimonious"
to-day, they will by to-morrow, or the next day, be sufficient
ly assimilated to the company they keep, and the designs
they pursue, to merit them : they get a character for life
only one day too soon. Besides, it is not the character of an
odd man or two, or at most of half a dozen in a state, that
happens to have a head too thick to admit, or too hot to yield
to the principles of the party, that is to denominate the exact
dark hue of the vice, or the precise measure of infamy that
belongs of right to the party. Look at France, see jacobin
ism at home, where, neither ashamed of its character, nor
afraid of its punishment, it indulges the unrestrained pro
pensities of its nature, and then decide, reader, if you can,
that the victims of law are a worse set of men than its con
querors.

IT must be remembered too, that publick opinion is the great
auxiliary of good government. Where can its weight fall so
properly as on the conspirators who disturb its tranquillity
and plot its subversion? The man, who, from passion or
folly, or bad company, happens to believe, that liberty will
rise, when government sinks, may be less criminal, but little
less contemptible for his sincerity. If a mad man should
poison a spring, because he fancies, that all, who drink and
die, will go to heaven and be happy, is he to be soothed and

100 LAOCOOX.

indulged ? Will you let him have his way ? Are you not to
tell those who are thirsty, and about to drink the poisonous
water, that it is death ? Will it be against " candour and
decency" to tell them, that the man is mad? The gentle
eriticks on the style of federal writers would have that scorn
Withheld, which is almost the only thing that actually re
strains the jacobins from mischief; that scorn, which makes
those who might be misled ashamed to join them. The fac
tious have the cunning to say, that the bitterness of their
spirit is owing to the harsh and acrimonious treatment they
receive ; as if reproach had made them jacobins ; whereas
it is jacobinism that extorts reproach. Our government has
not armies, nor a hierarchy, nor an extensive patronage. In
stead of these auxiliaries of other governments, let it have
the sword of public opinion drawn in its defence, and not only
drawn but whetted by satire to an edge to hew its adversaries
clown. Let jacobin vice be seen as a monster, and let not
a mock candour pity, till we embrace it. Other governments
jnay stand, though not very steadily, if publick opinion be only
neuter : but our system has so little intrinsick energy, that
this soul of the republick's soul must not only approve, but
co-operate. The vain, the timid, and trimming must be made
by examples to see that scorn smites, and blasts, and withers
like lightning the knaves that mislead them. Then let the
misled many come off and leave the party if they will ; if not,
let them club it with them for the infamy.

A FRAME of government less free and popular might per
haps have been left to take some care of itself; but the
people choose to have it as it is, and, therefore, they must
not complain of the burden, but come forward and support
it : it has not strength to stand alone without such help
from the wise and honest citizens. The time to do this, is
at the elections. There, if any where, the sovereignty of
the citizen is to be exercised ; and there the privilege is open
'to the most excessive and most fatal abuse.

LAOCOON. 101

at last the jacobins have taken their post, and here
they have intrenched themselves to assail our sober and
orderly liberty. Here we see of late, indeed within a single
year, an almost total change in the tacticks, and management
of parties. The jacobins have at last made their own disci
pline perfect: they are trained, officered, regimented and
formed to subordination, in a manner that our militia have
never yet equalled. Emissaries are sent to every class of men,
and even to every individual man, that can be gained. Every
threshing floor, every husking, every party at work on a
house-frame or raising a building, the very funerals are
infected with bawlers or whisperers against government. In
one of our towns, it is a fact, that the vote would have been
unanimous for our worthy chief magistrate; but a turbulent
man who kept two great dogs, but could not keep his estate,
had influence enough to gain five or six votes for the anti-
candidate : the only complaint he had to urge agaiiist the
governour was, that he had signed the act for the dog tax.

THE extreme industry of this faction shews the extent of
their designs ; even the town governments are not below
their scheme of influence. It is plain, that they intend to •
get the state government into their hands. They wrill make
the attempt, and if they get only one-fifth jacobin members,
they will try again next year, never despairing of their final
success : should they succeed, they would use the power of,
Massachusetts against the laws and government of the United
States. No longer hoping much aid from the fleets and
armies of France, which they but lately declared they wished
to see on our shores and coast, they rely on themselves. In
every state they are exerting themselves rather more like
an armed force beating up for recruits, than a sect of politi
cal disputants ; and it is as certain as any future event can
be, that they will take arms against the laws as soon as they
dare ; probably within a year, if they get the countenance of
the New-England state governments. They are already in
arms in Pennsylvania? and Virginia holds forth all possible

102 IvAOCOON.

encouragement to their rising, by resolutions and remon
strances calculated to excite civil war, and to infuse into the
bosoms of the factious all the fury with which such wars are
carried on.

IF they would rise and try the issue in the field, they
would be beaten. Let them then come out ; but while they
depend on lies and industry in spreading them, they will
beat us.

THEY are overmatched by the federalists in argument.
Every publick question, that has been keenly investigated,
and sifted by the political writers and debaters on both sides,
has been clearly decided against them. In the resources of
money and that sort of credit, which grows out of confidence
in the virtue and morals of political men, the jacobins are
weak indeed. The federalists, throughout New-England at
least, probably pay nineteen shillings in the pound of the
taxes; and as to credit, the chiefs of the party would consi
der an inquiry into their title to any as a cruel irony. For
talents as statesmen the New-England jacobin leaders are
despicable ; their ignorance of commerce, of finance, and of
the u diplomatick skill" of France, is not only obvious, but they
are concerned to urge the last as an excuse, for if they are
not ignorant they are wicked : it is possible they are both.
As to talents in the field, on which side do they appear ? The
reader may be left to look up jacobin generals and heroes.

WITH all these undoubted titles to contempt, are the jaco
bins to be despised ? Individually, it may be so ; though great
numbers are rather to be pitied ; but, collectively, they are
formidable, and a party is never more to be feared than when
it is despised. Then they are let alone to undermine the
pillars of the publick order ; then it happens, as at the pre
sent moment, that they bestir themselves to get jacobins
elected into the general court ; and the friends of govern
ment, despising their foe, sleep in a dangerous security.

THE jacobins know, that they are as yet weak in force,
though powerful in lies and low cunning. They will not

LAOCOON. 103

appear in arms at present, for that would make their weak
ness the antagonist of our strength. But lies and cunning
are always formidable at elections : thus they oppose their
strength to our weakness ; we cannot and will not resort to
lies. But we can overmatch them when we take the alarm
in season, and rouse the federal zeal : that zeal has more
than once saved the country. Now is the time and the occa
sion again to display it, for the faction turns its evil eyes to
the elections of the house of representatives of the state ;
and if they obtain even a large minority, they will spread the
infection with more ardour than even a majority, as minori
ties are ever the most industrious and most firmly united. So
large a mass of poison in the general court, lying in fer
mentation for a year, would vitiate and corrupt our political
health ; and by another year a jacobin majority would appeal-
there to overturn, and overturn, and overturn, till property-
shall take wings, and true liberty and good government find
their graves. By getting a majority of jacobins into the
New-England state legislatures, they would make civil war,
disunion, and perhaps a foreign yoke, the lot of the present
generation. Friends of virtue, if you will not attend the
election, and lend to liberty the help of your votes, within
two years you will have to defend her cause with your
swords.

LAOCOON, NO. II.

TO some the warmth of the preceding number of Laocoou
will appear excessive, and to others altogether superfluous :
excessive, because, they urge, the feelings of the jacobins
ought to be treated with more tenderness, and their designs
with more candour ; and superfluous, because the political
sky is bright and unclouded, promising the long continuance
of fair weather. The adoption of either of these opinions

104 LAOCOOK..

would have an influence with the writer ; the first would
change his style, the latter impose silence. Faction is an
adherence to interests foreign to the interests of the state :
there is such a faction amongst us devoted to France. He
believes that the jacobin faction is composed, like every
other, of ambitious knaves who mislead, and of a weak and
infatuated rubble who are misled. Among the latter are
numbers who set out honest, and, while they continue so,
they are deserving of some indulgence, and there is some
hope of reclaiming a -very few of them ; but if they travel
far on the party road, or associate long with the desperadoes
in the van, who explore the thorny and crooked by-ways,
they will not remain honest. They will be corrupted, and
so deeply, that, in every approach towards civil war and
revolution, the dupes, who sincerely believe the whole creed
of their party, will be found ready to go the farthest. After
they have thrown off all political duty, the remains of other
moral principles, which the Jihilosofihers would call the pre
judices of education, will be just sufficient to prevent remorse,
or to stifle it. There is a sophistry in all the passions, and
that of every strong one is almost always convincing. We
see accordingly that men of some morals, when they run
politically mad, far from flinching from the debasing com
pany of knaves, whom party dubs patriots^ make open pro
fession of their monstrous principles, and hardily vindicate
their most desperate designs. It is a fact, the talk of the
jacobins, and even their printed threats are to demolish bank
property and funded debt, and to wreak vengeance on the
aristocrats, meaning the possessors of property. How many
professors of the Christian religion have seen with compla
cency, nay with joy and exultation, the downfal of priests,
and creeds, and churches in France. The unspeakable cru
elties and crimes exercised against catholics, they tell us,
will introduce the true worship, and that they admire, and
we are bound to approve, proceedings that are so wicked,
because they will be so useful. The sophistry that can thus

LAOCOOX. 103-

bilence conscience and varnish crimes, has no less succeeded
in blinding the understandings of these honest jacobins (so
called) to the absolute falsehood of their political notions.
France has confessedly lost liberty, and the spirit and love of
it, and has become infatuated with the passion for rapine and
conquest ; yet they still insist, that, though France has not
liberty at present, she will have it. After the revolutionary
storm, there will be a delightful calm, when reason only will
be heard, and nothing but the equal rights of man desired or
regarded : and as to the conquest of other nations, aristocra
cies or corruptions of democracy fell in Switzerland, and the
universal domination of France will multiply republicks and
demolish thrones. Is the writer to blame, if he feels contempt
for opinions like these ? If, notwithstanding their absurdity, and
indeed for the very reason that they are absurd, he sees that;
they arc contagious, and knows that they arc dangerous ; if he
sees their propagators formidable by their zeal, and the more
formidable for its blindness, digging their mines and laying*
their trains of gun-powder to blow up the temple of liberty, is it
possible for him to feel contempt in silence, or can he express
it without a mixture of detestation and abhorrence ? The party
who thus labour to destroy all that we have toiled and fought
for, and sworn to preserve, is surely, collectively speaking,
the proper object of our considerate indignation ; nor can there
be any unfitncss, any want of candour, any departure from the
line of /2o/z'cz/, in exhibiting the picture of this party, as it is.
The inevitable effect of this picture is to excite aversion, scorn,
and terrour : the fault of rousing these unpleasant emotions,
in all their strength, is not in the painter, it is in the subject.
Let the soft seekers of popularity dream of soothing parties
into moderation. When they see a faction devoted to our
foreign enemy, putting their all in jeopardy, let them counsel
us again, as they have often done before, to bestow upon the
factious all our charity, and more than half our esteem, and.
upon the government that is struggling to preserve us, all our
jealousy, and as much of our support as we can afford it with*
14

106 LAOCOOX.

out making enemies. Let them compose new homilies for
hypocrisy, to inculcate upon citizens brotherly love towards
amiable, patriotick traitors, and upon government forbearance
to make or execute laws against inoffensive conspiracies. But
let such discourses issue only from the Chronicle. Let all
but its readers and patrons abstain from censuring the asperity,
with which the jacobins, as a party, are treated. The scorn
that is poured upon them is the greatest obstacle they encoun
ter in their more than Jesuit labours of making converts to
jacobinism ; and the dread and abhorrence, in which the party
and their schemes are held, is the chief auxiliary of good
government in preventing their success. It is the squeamish-
ness, the trimming, ha}f-way, selfish spirit of too many federal
ists that keeps the faction encouraged to prosecute its pestilent
designs. The British nation is now united as one man, and
the force of publick opinion is combined, the voice of the
real nation is heard, and faction is of consequence in the mire
of contempt. Till our spirit is in like manner roused, all
things will seem to be possible to party, and therefore all evil
things will be attempted. If we allow ourselves to hope any
respite from the assaults of the French faction, it is by animat
ing the zeal of the friends of virtue and government, and
persuading them to come forth and to speak out, and thus
we shall discourage and disarm the factious : their affected
moderation must not rob the cause of half its support. It is
indeed evident, that the spirit of the friends of order is at all
times weak, excepting only when the danger is so near and
obvious as to rouse an universal alarm and a common exertion.
A correct view of the character of jacobinism, if once clearly
taken and profoundly impressed upon the publick, would keep
those well grounded apprehensions constantly awake, which in
effect are the guardians of our political safety.

I WILL not therefore admit, that the task of delineating the
true character of the deluded mass of the jacobins is unneces
sary, or that by adhering to truth there will be a deviation from
urbanity and candour. I will raise my feeble voice to expose

LAOCOON. 107

the frailty of those hopes, which too many repose on the honesty
of the factious, and which incline them to behold the despera
tion of their measures without much iear, because they trust
that the individuals of the party will flinch as soon as things
approach towards extremities. This trust is a vain one. I
am as ready as others to make excuses for the deluded of all
parties. Of all the causes of seduction from virtue, perhaps,
none is so powerful as the fellowship of party. But what
then ? Are we still to maintain that party men are honest, when
they have been long exposed to an influence, which we know is
almost irresistibly corrupting ? We may, and we ought, on this
account, the more deeply to deplore the ravages of the spirit
of faction upon morals and the sentiments of humanity. We
are not, however, to deny the fact, and insist upon reposing
our confidence in the correct moral discernment of men,
whom we know to be deluded, nor in the restraints of shame
and principle upon those minds, which have already overcome
the shame of their principles and their associates. We may
be sure, that more than half the utmost corrupting work of
political vice is already done, and that the reputed honest men
of the faction have either renounced their old principles, or
dismissed them as the guides of their conduct. It is a cruel
mercy, that would spare the party, because some of the indi
viduals mean well. The plain truth should be told ; it may
alarm a few, and save them from being traitors.

SOME labour to exhibit a brief analysis will be proper, as it
will tend to excite federalists to a sense of their actual danger,
and disarm the host of trimmers and political hypocrites of a
topick which they never fail to urge upon our politeness and
good nature, whenever they would abate the scorn that is
thrown upon one party, or quench the sparks of that zeal which
is too rarely excited in the other.

SUPPOSING the honest among the jacobins to possess the
ordinary degrees of self-knowledge, on looking inward they
will find there a consciousness of some moral principle, of
some integrity of heart. This will make them less distrustful

108 LAOCOOX,

of themselves, less apprehensive of the reproaches of others ;
and having adopted erroneous political maxims, they will
pursue their dark mazes with a fearless step. The ill conse
quences, though natural, not being foreseen, will seem to
proceed from accident, and only stimulate their perseverance,
or to be owing to the malice of the concealed aristocrats, and
inflame with a ten-fold heat the rancour of their hostility.
What was errour becomes passion. The honest man thinks,
that he is summoned to the combat : the casuistry of a jaco
bin conscience spreads a mist before his eyes, which he thinks
renders him invisible ; obstinacy cases him in mail ; French
humanity puts a dagger into one hand, and party zeal, calling
itself patriotism, a fire brand into the other. Thus the honest
jacobin, equally misled by what he knows, and by the nature
of his own principles and their tendencies, goes forth to assist
knaves in what he deems the cause of virtue. He has so
many excuses in the good motives, which he is sure he does
feel, and in the happy consequences, which lie thinks he cer
tainly does foresee, that he makes haste to spread ruin without
compunction, and to perpetrate crimes without remorse. Every
intelligent politician knows, that, in all party affairs, the un
thinking dupes and honest fools are the rashest. The crimes
they can excuse, and even persuade themselves to call virtues,
they do not blush to commit. They are not afraid of shame,
because they adopt the creed of their teachers, and glory in it.
They dance on the edge of a precipice, and think it a firm
plain all round their feet. They foresee but little, and dread
little of what they foresee. Little deterred by unforeseen
danger, and strongly allured by imaginary good, that will be
the sure reward of their patriot labours, if successful, the duty
to struggle for that success appears to be superiour to every
other. The best institutions, the great safeguards of order,
seem to them abuses : government is an obstacle, and must be
removed ; magistrates are enemies, and must be conquered.
They at last make conscience of committing the most shock
ing atrocities, and learn to throw their eyes beyond the gulph

LAOCOON. 109

of revolution, confusion, and civil war, which yawns at their
feet, to behold an Eden of primitive innocence, equality, and
liberty in blossom on the other side. There these tigers of
revolution, their leaders, are to lie down with the lamb-like
multitude, sometimes suffering hunger, yet forbearing to eat
them. The rights of man are to be established by being
solemnly proclaimed, and printed, so that every citizen shall
have a copy. Avarice, ambition, revenge, and rage will be
disenchanted from all hearts, and die there ; man will be re
generated ; by slaying half a million only once, four millions
will be born twice, and the glorious work of that perfectibility
of the species, foretold by Condorcet and the Mazzei sect in
America, will begin.

THE knaves, however, who lead this infatuated honest multi
tude, indulge no such extravagant delusions. They have no
faith in this splendid hereafter, this happy future state for
jacobins in this world. They have as little taste for it. They
propose other rewards for their patriotick virtue, than this
heaven of metaphysicks has laid up for them. Turning to their
own base hearts, they shrink from, themselves, and are more
likely to feel remorse, than their honest disciples ; they are
conscious, that they ought to be suspected, and they act with
the caution that this consciousness inevitably inspires ; their
dupes act with a fervour, and rage, and thirst for innovation,
which render the prospects of all possible confusion insufficient
to satisfy them. The cold thinking villains who lead, " whose
" black blood runs temperately bad," desire on the contrary no
more confusion than just enough to answer their own ends :
their ambition would naturally desire to preserve the powers
of government to usurp them, and their rapacity would spare
the wealth of the state to plunder it. A fresh set would
indeed succeed, as in France, and rob the first despoilers, till
the state, successively a prey, would be reduced to beggary
and ruin. It is seldom that the leaders of revolutions have
much profited by them ; and this shews the shortsightedness
even of their policy, and that, as it relates to their own personal

no LAonoox.

advantage, they are nearly as much deluded as their dupes/
But the possession of the sovereign power, however precarious,
is too great a temptation for their prudence to withstand.
Accordingly we see, that for such a prize competitors are
never wanting ; and they struggle for the imperial purple with
as much ardour and fierceness, as if it were not wet and drop
ping with the blood of x its last usurper. Robespierre's fall
incited more pretenders than it intimidated.

IT will be objected, that this open avowal of contempt and
detestation of 'the jacobins, and this unreserved exhortation to
all friends of government to inculcate these sentiments, can
only exasperate party animosities and augment their mutual
virulence. I ask in reply, would my silence, or the most sooth
ing style of address I could choose, prevent or compose these
animosities ? Is it in the nature of free governments to exist
without parties ? Such a thing has never yet been and probably
never will be. Is it in the nature of party to exist without
passion ? or of passion to acquiesce, when it meets with opposers
and obstacles ? Is it owing, do-the vapid declaimers really think
in good faith, to the intemperance or indiscretion of federal
writers, that jacobins are restless and malignant ? or that, by
changing epithets or lavishing lying praises on their honesty,
they would change their nature and renounce their designs ?
No, it is absurd to expect faction cold in the pursuit of great
objects, reasonable in selecting means for gratifying inordinate
designs, retarded by moral doubts and perplexities, when
led by philosophers, soft to persuade, when it is callous to
pity, and fearless of consequences. Party moderation is chil
dren's talk. Who has ever seen faction calmly in a rage ?
Who will expect to see that carnivorous monster quietly sub
mit to eat grass ?

THE criticks on this performance may be assured, there
fore, that, if no good is done by it, it will not do the mischief
they apprehend. Parties will hate each other a little less for
mutual plain dealing and freedom of speech ; for they never

LAOCOOtf. Ill

hate with more inveteracy than when they condescend to sooth
and to flatter.

THERE are some who will admit, that the spirit of party is
virulent, and its principle and designs utterly profligate, who
will nevertheless scruple to say, that the present state of affairs
is such as to demand an alarming appeal to the patriotism of
the citizens. France, our dangerous foe, they will tell us, is
baffled and detected in her arts, and deprived by the victories of
the English navy of her arms ; that all fear of invasion may be
dismissed ; and even if a few thousand negroes should be
landed from Guadaloupe, the citizens would rally round the
standard of lawful government, and crush the invaders ; that
the rebellion in Pennsylvania is feeble in force, and cowardly in
spirit ; that the government never before had such power of
arms, of credit, of treasure, and what is more than arms and
treasure, of duty and affection in the hearts of all good citizens ;
that it appears the fairer, for having been falsely accused ; that
its friends have more zeal and confidence than ever, and the
jacobins now feel their own weakness, and know, that they can
depend little on themselves, and none at all on France. This
is, therefore, they will insist, a time for exultation, not of alarm ;
a time tranquilly to enjoy the blessings of our free constitution,
not to suffer anxiety, and to mount guard, as heretofore, for its
defence. These are pleasing illusions, but they are illusions.

WHEN we look at Europe, and contemplate its political
state, we seem to be treading on the crater of a half-extinguished
volcano. Here, scarcely cool from their fusion, are the cin
ders of one republick, and there still smoke the brands of
another. On this side see a little Italian state beginning to
belch revolutionary fires ; on that another lies like a little
mount on the great French volcano, a jumbled mass of lava
and ruins. Can we think there is a decree for the immortal
ity of our republick, when every gazette from Europe is black
ened with the epitaphs of nations once independent, now no
more. Lately they had life and being ; now they lie like little
mangled birds to digest in the French tiger's maw. One

112 LAOCOOXi

nation alone resists these new Romans, and prevents the estab
lishment of a universal domination, and a despotism over the
whole civilized world. Surely, if we contemplate only external
danger, this is no time for security and presumptuous confi
dence. That single nation, though magnanimous, though pow
erful in wealth as wrell as spirit, may grow weary of standing
in the gap, or, possibly, may imitate the wretched policy of the
emperour, and, in compensation for a respite to the strong foes
of France, may permit her to finish the conquest of her weak
ones. The power of France, though checked at sea, is still
gigantick, far exceeding that of the Roman empire in the days
of Trajan ; and, before the end of the year, she will probably
incorporate all Italy, Spain, and Portugal, with her vast terri
tory, which takes the Rhine for a boundary, and includes Hol
land. It is more than a thousand years, since the world has
seen a power any thing near so overwhelming and terrifick as
that of France. Dreadful as her force is, her arts are still more
dreadful, and here our danger lies.

A FACTION, whose union is perfect, whose spirit is des
perate, addressing something persuasive to every prejudice,
putting something combustible to every passion, granting
some indulgence to every vice, promising those who dread the
law to set them above it, to the mean whispering suspicion,
to the ambitious offering power, to the rapacious, plunder, to
the violent, revenge, to the envious, the abasement of all that
is venerable, to innovators, the transmutation of ail that is
established, grouping together all that is folly, vice, and pas
sion in the state, and forming of these vile materials another
state, an imfierium in imjierio — Behold this is our condition,
these pur terrours. And \vhat are the resources for our safety I

THEY all exist in the energy and correctness of the publick
opinion. A thousand proofs exist, but the fact is so notorious
it is needless to vouch them, to show, that our government has
been, and is supported only by the appeal to the virtue, zeal,
and patriotism of the body of the citizens. Genet assumed
upon himself the powers of a sovereign, and exercised them

LAOCOON. 113

too, till the government cried out for help to the people, and
they came to help in season. The treaty contest stopped the
wheels of government for a time ; and the effective sovereignty
was first actually assumed and exercised by the town meetings,
and then divided between the executive and senate on one side,
who adhered to the treaty, and the house who shewed a dispo
sition to annul it. This was an instance of the government
being near its death, by the benumbing stroke of a factious
apoplexy, without a resort to arms, without taking the sense
of the people. But again in that case, the real people took
the alarm, and saved the country from the terrible convulsions,
which never fail to ensue, when the political house is divided
against itself. With less intelligence of the citizens, or a fort
night's less speed in rallying, all would then have been lost.

WHEN the instances are so recent, that the pulse of alarm
has scarcely yet ceased to flutter, will any man of common sense
pretend to say, that our government stands unshaken upon a
foundation of rock ? that the sounds of alarm are counterfeit
or imaginary ? that faction is impotent and contemptible ?

No nation can rely on the sufficiently clear and early political
discernment of its citizens, to discover and repel the danger to
its liberty and independence : they may discover their danger
too late, as all the people of the fallen European states did :
they may mistake too, and think, as the Swiss did, that it is.
safer to trust the foe than to resist him. Opinion is every
where fickle, and our political situation is awkward and unpre
cedented ; hard now to change, impossible to maintain a strange
middle state, not easy to be understood or approver!. It is
peace without tranquillity ; it is war without action : it is peace,
yet it is dangerous ; it is war, yet it deadens all the fervours
of patriotism, all the energies of valour : it is peace so far only,
as to lay our bosoms bare to the poisoned darts of our foe,
and to the hostility of his ally, our intestine faction ; it is war
to every extent, that can expose us to alarm, to depredation,
and to expense. Such a state cannot be maintained longer
than just to afford to the nation some few months to decide
which they will prefer, a foreign or a civil war.
15

114 LAOOOON":

THE malady of a foreign faction has grown inveterate by-
time and by palliatives ; it has burrowed deep in the flesh, and
mingled a corrosive lymph with the marrow of the bones.
Every common observer may be sure it is approaching a vio
lent crisis. The jacobins have been every where in movement,
preparing eveiy engine of power and influence, to transfer the
countiy, its liberty, and property, at the next election of presi
dent and vice-president, into the hands of men equally destitute
of private virtue and of publick spirit.

AT this day, so fatal to the independence of free states,
the sound of alarm ought not to surprise, it should animate.
Republican liberty is held by the tenure of continuing worthy
to hold it : we have to choose between the burden of its
duties and its destiny. It has ever been deemed the Hespe
rian fruit, but since the days of fable it was never yet guarded
by dragons. Why then will any one reprove the writer for
attempting to rouse the vigilance of the citizens ? It is for
them as a body, and individually, to form a lifeguard to pro
tect it from assassination.

[ 115

EULOGY ON WASHINGTON.

DELIVERED, AT THE REQUEST OF THE LEGISLATURE OP MASSA
CHUSETTS, FEB. 8,1800.

AT is natural that the gratitude of mankind should be drawn
to their benefactors. A number of these have successively
arisen, who were no less distinguished for the elevation of
their virtues, than the lustre of their talents. Of those, how
ever, who were born, and who acted, through life, as if they
were born, not for themselves, but for their country and
the whole human race, how few, alas 1 are recorded in the
long annals of ages, and how wide the intervals of time and
space that divide them. In all this dreary length of way, they
appear like five or six light houses on as many thousand miles
of coast: they gleam upon the surrounding darkness, with an
inextinguishable splendour, like stars seen through a mist;
but they are seen like stars, to cheer, to guide, and to save.
WASHINGTON is now added to that small number. Already
he attracts curiosity, like a newly discovered star, whose
benignant light will travel on to the world's and time's farthest
bounds. Already his name is hung up by history as con
spicuously, as if it sparkled in one of the constellations of the
sky.

BY commemorating his death, we are called this day to
yield the homage that is due to virtue ; to confess the com
mon debt of mankind as well as our own ; and to pronounce
for posterity, now dumb, that elogium, which they will delight
to echo ten ages hence, when we are dumb.

I CONSIDER myself not merely in the midst of the citizens
of this town, or even of the state In idea, I gather round me
the nation. In the vast and venerable congregation of the
patriots of all countries and of all enlightened men, I would,
if I could, raise my voice, and speak to mankind in a strain

116 E'ULOGY ON

worthy of my audience, and as elevated as my subject. But
you have assigned me a task that is impossible.

O IF I could perform it, if I could illustrate his principles
in my discourse as he displayed them in his life, if I could
paint his virtues as he practised them, if I could convert the
fervid enthusiasm of my heart into the talent to transmit his
fame, as it ought to pass, to posterity, I should be the success
ful organ of your will, the minister of his virtues, and may I
dare to say, the humble partaker of his immortal glory. These
are ambitious, deceiving hopes, and I reject them ; for it is,
perhaps, almost as difficult, at once with judgment and feeling,
to praise great aciions, as to perform them. A lavish and
undistinguishing elogium is not praise ; and to discriminate
such excellent qualities as were characteristick and peculiar
to him, would be to raise a name, as he raised it, above envy,
above parallel, perhaps, for that very reason, above emulation.

SUCH a portraying of character, however, must be address
ed to the understanding, and, therefore, even if it were well
executed, would seem to be rather an analysis of moral prin
ciples, than the recital of a hero's exploits.

WITH whatever fidelity I might execute this task, I know
that some would prefer a picture drawn to the imagination.
They would have our WASHINGTON represented of a giant's
size, and in the character of a hero of romance. They who
love to wonder better than to reason, would not be satisfied
with the contemplation of a great example, unless, in thr
exhibition, it should be so distorted into prodigy, as to be both
incredible and useless. Others, I hope but few, who think
meanly of human nature, will deem it incredible, that even
WASHINGTON should think with as much dignity and elevation
as he acted ; and they will grovel in vain in the search for
mean and selfish motives, that could incite and sustain him to
devote his life to his country.

Do not these suggestions sound in your ears like a profana
tion of virtue ? and, while I pronounce them, do you not fee,!
a thrill of indignation at your hearts ? Forbear. Time never
fails to bring every exalted reputation to a strict scrutiny : the

WASHINGTON. 117

world, in passing the judgment that is never to be reversed,
will deny all partiality even to the name of WASHINGTON.
Let it be denied, for its justice will confer glory.

SUCH a life as WASHINGTON'S cannot derive honour from
the circumstances of birth and education, though it throws
back a lustre upon both. With an inquisitive mind, that
always profited by the lights of others, and was unclouded by
passions of its own, he acquired a maturity of judgment, rare
in age, unparalleled in youth. Perhaps no young man had
so early laid up a life's stock of materials for solid reflection,
or settled so soon the principles and habits of his conduct.
Gray experience listened to his counsels with respect, and, at
a time when youth is almost privileged to be rash, Virginia
committed the safety of her frontier, and, ultimately, the safety
of America, not merely to his valour, for that would be scarcely
praise, but to his prudence.

IT is not in Indian wars that heroes are celebrated ; but it
is there they are formed. No enemy can be more formidable,
by the craft of his ambushes, the suddenness of his onset, or
the ferocity of his vengeance. The soul of WASHINGTON was
thus exercised to danger ; and, on the first trial, as on every
other, it appeared firm in adversity, cool in action, undaunted,
self-possessed. His spirit, and still more his prudence, on the
occasion of Braddock's defeat, diffused his name throughout
America, and across the Atlantick. Even then his country
viewed him with complacency, as her most hopeful son.

AT the peace of 1763, Great Britain, in consequence of her
victories, stood in a position to prescribe her own terms. She
chose, perhaps, better for us than for herself: for by expelling
the French from Canada, we no longer feared hostile neigh
bours ; and we soon found just cause to be afraid of our pro
tectors. We discerned, even then, a truth, which the conduct
of France has since so strongly confirmed, that there is nothing
which the gratitude of weak states can give, that will satisfy
strong allies for their aid, but authority : nations that want
protectors, will have masters. Our settlements, no longer
checked by enemies on the frontier, rapidly increased ; and it

118 EULOGY ON

was discovered, that America was growing to a size that could
defend itself.

IN this, perhaps unforeseen, but at length obvious state of
things, the British government conceived a jealousy of the
colonies, of which, and of their intended measures of precau-.
tion, they made no secret.

OUR nation, like its great leader, had only to take counsel
from its courage. When WASHINGTON heard the voice of
his country in distress, his obedience was prompt ; and though
his sacrifices were great, they cost him no effort. Neither
the object, nor the limits of my plan, permit me to dilate on
the military events of the revolutionary war. Our history is
but a transcript of his claims on our gratitude : our hearts
bear testimony, that they are claims not to be satisfied. When
overmatched by numbers, a fugitive with a little band of
faithful soldiers, the states as much exhausted as dismayed,
he explored his own undaunted heart, and found there re
sources to retrieve our affairs. We have seen him display as
much valour as gives fame to heroes, and as consummate pru
dence as ensures success to valour ; fearless of dangers that
were personal to him, hesitating and cautious, when they
affected his country ; preferring fame before safety or repose,
and duty before fame.

ROME did not owe more to Fabius, than America to WASH
INGTON. Our nation shapes with him the singular glory of
having conducted a civil war with mildness, and a revolution
with order.

THE event of that war seemed to crown the felicity and
glory both of America and its chief. Until that contest, a
great part of the civilized world had been surprisingly igno
rant of the force and character, and almost of the existence,
of the British colonies. They had not retained what they
knew, nor felt curiosity to know the state of thirteen wretched
settlements, which vast woods enclosed, and still vaster woods
divided from each other. They did not view the colonists so
much a people, as a race of fugitives, whom want, and soli
tude, and intermixture with, the savages, had made barbarians.

WASHINGTON. 119

AT this time, while Great Britain wielded a force truly
formidable to the most powerful states, suddenly, astonished
Europe beheld a feeble people, till then unknown, stand forth,
and defy this giant to the combat. It was so unequal, all
expected it would be short. Our final success exalted their
admiration to its highest point : they allowed to WASHINGTON
all that is due to transcendent virtue, and to the Americans
more than is due to human nature. They considered us a
race of WASHINGTONS, and admitted that nature in America
was fruitful only in prodigies. Their books and their travel
lers, exaggerating and distorting all their representations, as
sisted to establish the opinion, that this is a new world, with
a new order of men and things adapted to it ; that here we
practise industry, amidst the abundance that requires none ;
that we have morals so refined, that we do not need laws ; and
though we have them, yet we ought to consider their execu
tion as an insult and a wrong ; that we have virtue without
weaknesses, sentiment without passions, and liberty without
factions. These illusions, in spite of their absurdity, and, per
haps, because they are absurd enough to have dominion over
the imagination only, have been received by many of the male-
contents against the governments of Europe, and induced them
to emigrate. Such illusions are too soothing to vanity to be
entirely checked in their currency among Americans.

THEY have been pernicious, as they cherish false ideas of
the rights of men and the duties of rulers. They have led the
citizens to look for liberty, where it is not ; and to consider
the government, which is its castle, as its prison.

WASHINGTON retired to Mount Vernon, and the eyes of the
world followed him. He left his countrymen to their simpli
city and their passions, and their glory soon departed. Europe
began to be undeceived, and it seemed, for a time, as if, by the
acquisition of independence, our citizens were disappointed.
The confederation was then the only compact made " to form
" a perfect union of the states, to establish justice, to ensure the
" tranquillity, and provide for the security, of the nation ;" and*
accordingly, union was a name that still commanded reverence,

J20 EULOGY ON

though not obedience. The system called justice was, iii
some of the states, iniquity reduced to elementary principles ;
and the publick tranquillity was such a portentous calm, as
rings in deep caverns before the explosion of an earthquake*
Most of the states then were in fact, though not in form,
unbalanced democracies. Reason, it is true, spoke audibly in
their constitutions ; passion and prejudice louder in their laws.
It is to the honour of Massachusetts, that it is chargeable with
little deviation from principles : its adherence to them was
one of the causes of a dangerous rebellion. It was scarcely
possible that such governments should not be agitated by par-
tics, and that prevailing parties should not be vindictive and
unjust. Accordingly, in some of the states, creditors were treat*
ed as outlaws ; bankrupts were armed with legal authority to be
persecutors ; and, by the shock of all confidence and faith,
society was shaken to its foundations. Liberty we had, but we
dreaded its abuse almost as much as its loss ; and the wise, who
deplored the one, clearly foresaw the other.

TH-E peace of America hung by a thread, and factions were
already sharpening their weapons to cut it. The project of
three separate empires in America was beginning to be broach
ed, and the progress of licentiousness would have soon render
ed her citizens unfit for liberty in either of them. An age of
blood and misery would have punished our disunion : but these
were not the considerations to deter ambition from its purpose,
while there were so many circumstances in our political situa
tion to favour it.

AT this awful crisis, which all the wise so much dreaded at
the time, yet which appears, on a retrospect, so much more
dreadful than their fears ; some man was wanting who possess
ed a commanding power over the popular passions, but over
whom those passions had no power. That man was WASH
INGTON.

His name, at the head of such a list of worthies as would
reilect honour on any country, had its proper weight with all
the enlightened, and with almost all the well disposed among
the less informed citizens, and, blessed be God ! the constitu*

WASHINGTON. 121

lion was adopted. Yes, to the eternal honour of America
among the nations of the earth, it was adopted, in spite of the
obstacles, which, in any other country, and, perhaps, in any
other age of (his, would have been insurmountable ; in spite of
the doubts and fears, which well-meaning prejudice creates
for itself, and which party so artfully inflames into stubborn
ness ; in spite of the vice, which it has subjected to restraint,
and which is therefore its immortal and implacable foe ; in
spite of the oligarchies in some of the states, from whom it
snatched dominion ; it was adopted, and our country enjoys,
one more invaluable chance for its union and happiness :
invaluable ! if the retrospect of the dangers we have escaped
shall sufficiently inculcate the principles we have so tardily
established. Perhaps multitudes are not to be taught by their
fears only, without suffering much to deepen the impression ;
for experience brandishes in her school a whip of scorpions,
and teaches nations her summary lessons of wisdom by the
scars and wounds of their adversity.

THE amendments which have been projected in some of
the states shew, that, in them at least, these lessons are not
well remembered. In a confederacy of states, some power
ful, others weak, the weakness of the federal union will, sooner
or later, encourage, and will not restrain, the ambition and
injustice of the members : the weak can no otherwise be
strong or safe, but in the energy of the national government.
It is this defect, which the blind jealousy of the weak states
not unfrequently contributes to prolong, that has proved fatal
to all the confederations that ever existed.

ALTHOUGH it was impossible that such merit as WASH
INGTON'S should not produce envy, it was scarcely possible
that, with such a transcendent reputation, he should have rivals.
Accordingly, he was unanimously chosen president of the
United States.

As a general and a patriot, the measure of his glory was
already full : there was no fame left for him to excel but his
own ; and even that task, the mightiest of all his labours, his
civil magistracy has accomplished.
16

122 EULOGY ON

No sooner did the new government begin its auspicious
course, than order seemed to arise out of confusion. Com
merce and industry awoke, and were cheerful at their labours ;
for credit and confidence awoke with them. Every where was
the appearance of prosperity ; and the only fear was, that its
progress was too rapid to consist with the purity and simpli
city of ancient manners. The cares and labours of the president
were incessant : his exhortations, example, and authority, were
employed to excite zeal and activity for the publick service :
able officers were selected, only for their merits ; and some of
them remarkably distinguished themselves by their successful
management of the publick business. Government was admin
istered with such integrity, without mystery, and in so pros
perous a course, that it seemed to be wholly employed in acts
of beneficence. Though it has made many thousand malecon-
tents, it has never, by its rigour or injustice, made one man
wretched.

SUCH was the state of publick affairs : and did it not seem
perfectly to ensure uninterrupted harmony to the citizens ? Did
they not, in respect to their government and its administration,
possess their whole heart's desire ? They had seen and suffer
ed long the want of an efficient constitution ; they had freely-
ratified it; they saw WASHINGTON, their tried friend, 'the
father of his country, invested with its powers : they knew
that he could not exceed or betray them, without forfeiting his
own reputation. Consider, for a moment, what a reputation it
was : such as no man ever before possessed by so clear a title,
and in so high a degree. His fame seemed in its purity to
exceed even its brightness : office took honour from his accept
ance, but conferred none. Ambition stood awed and darkened
by his shadow. For where, through the wide earth, was the
man so vain as to dispute precedence with him ; or what were
the honours that could make the possessor WASHINGTON'S
superiour ? Refined and complex as the ideas of virtue are,
even the gross could discern in his life the infinite superiority
of her rewards. Mankind perceived some change in their

WASHINGTON. 123

ideas of greatness : the splendour of power, and even of the
name of conqueror, had grown dim in their eyes. They did
not know that WASHINGTON could augment his fame ; but
they knew and felt, that the world's wealth, and its empire too,
would be a bribe far beneath his acceptance.

THIS is not exaggeration : never was confidence in a man
and a chief magistrate more widely diffused, or more solidly
established.

IF it had been in the nature of man, that we should enjoy
liberty, without the agitations of party, the United States had
a right, under these circumstances, to expect it : but it was
impossible. Where there is no liberty, they may be exempt
from party. It will seem strange, but it scarcely admits a
doubt, that there are fewer malecontents in Turkey, than in
any free state in the world. Where the people have no power,
they enter into no contests, and are not anxious to know how
they shall use it. The spirit of discontent becomes torpid for
want of employment, and sighs itself to rest. The people
sleep soundly in their chains, and do not even dream of their
weight. They lose their turbulence with their energy, and
become as tractable as any other animals : a state of degrada
tion, in which they extort our scorn, and engage our pity, for
the misery they do not feel. Yet that heart is a base one, and
fit only for a slave's bosom, that would not bleed freely, rather
than submit to such a condition ; for liberty with all its parties
and agitations is more desirable than slavery. Who would not
prefer the republicks of ancient Greece, where liberty once
subsisted in its excess, its delirium, terrible in its charms, and
glistening to the last with the blaze of the very fire that con
sumed it ?

I DO not know that I ought, but I am sure that I do, prefer
those republicks to the dozing slavery of the modern Greece,
where the degraded wretches have suffered scorn till they
merit it, where they tread on classick ground, on the ashes of
heroes and patriots, unconscious of their ancestry, ignorant of
the nature, and almost of the name of liberty, and insensible

124 EULOGY ON

even to the passion for it. Who, on this contrast, can forbear
to say, it is the modern Greece that lies buried, that sleeps
forgotten in the caves of Turkish darkness ? It is the ancient
Greece that lives in remembrance, that is still bright with
glory, still fresh in immortal youth. They are unworthy of
liberty, who entertain a less exalted idea of its excellence.
The misfortune is, that those who profess to be its most pas
sionate admirers have, generally, the least comprehension of
its hazards and impediments : they expect, that an enthusia&tick
admiration of its nature will reconcile the multitude to the irk-
someness of its restraints. Delusive expectation ! WASHING
TON was not thus deluded. We have his solemn warning
against the often fatal propensities of liberty. He had reflected,
that men are often false to their country and their honour, false
to duty and even to their interest, but multitudes of men arc
never long false or deaf to their passions : these will find ob
stacles in the laws, associates in party. The fellowships thus
formed are more intimate, and impose commands more im
perious, than those of society.

THUS party forms a state within the state, and is animated
by a rivalship, fear, and hatred, of its superiour. When this
happens, the merits of the government will become fresh pro
vocations and offences, for they are the merits of an enemy.
No wonder then, that as soon as party found the virtue
and glory of WASHINGTON were obstacles, the attempt was
made, by calumny, to surmount them both. For this, the
greatest of all his trials, we know that he was prepared. He
knew, that the government must possess sufficient strength
from within or without, or fall a victim to faction. This in-
teriour strength was plainly inadequate to its defence, unless it
could be reinforced from without by the zeal and patriotism of
the citizens ; and this latter resource was certainly as accessi
ble to president WASHINGTON, as to any chief magistrate that
ever lived. The life of the federal government, he considered,
was in the breath of the people's nostrils : whenever they
should happen to be so infatuated or inflamed as to abandon its

WASHINGTON. 125

defence, its end must be as speedy, and might be as tragical,
as a constitution for' France.

WHILE the president was thus administering the govern
ment in so wise and just a manner, as to engage the great
majority of the enlightened and virtuous citizens to co-operate
with him for its support, and while he indulged the hope that
time and habit were confirming their attachment, the French
revolution had reached that point in its progress, when its
terrible principles began to agitate all civilized nations. I will
not, on this occasion, detain you to express, though my thoughts
teem with it, my deep abhorrence of that revolution ; its des
potism, by the mob or the military, from the first, and its
hypocrisy of morals to the last. Scenes have passed there
which exceed description, and which, for other reasons, I will
not attempt to describe ; for it would not be possible, even at
this distance of time, and with the sea between us and France,
to go through with the recital of them, without perceiving
horrour gather, like a frost, about the heart, and almost stop its
pulse. That revolution .has been constant in nothing but its
vicissitudes, and its promises ; always delusive, but always re
newed, to establish philosophy by crimes, and liberty by the
sword. The people of France, if they are not like the modern
Greeks, find their cap of liberty is a soldier's helmet : and with
all their imitation of dictators and consuls, their exactest simi
litude to these Roman ornaments, is in their chains. The
nations of Europe perceive another resemblance, in their all-
conquering ambition.

BUT it is only the influence of that event on America, and
on the measures of the president, that belongs to my subject.
It would be ingratefully wrong to his character, to be silent in
respect to a part of it, which has the most signally illustrated
his virtues.

THE genuine character of that revolution is not even yet so
well understood, as the dictates of self-preservation require it
should be. The chief duty and care of all governments is to
protect the rights of property, and the tranquillity of society.

126 EULOGY ON

The leaders of the French revolution, from the beginning,
excited the poor against the rich. This has made the rich poor,
but it will never make the poor rich. On the contrary, they
were used only as blind instruments to make those leaders
masters, first of the adverse party, and then of the state. Thus
the powers of the state were turned round into a direction
exactly contrary to the proper one, not to preserve tranquillity
and restrain violence, but to excite violence by the lure of
power, and plunder, and vengeance. Thus all France has been,
and still is, as much the prize of the ruling party, as a captured
ship, and if any right or possession has escaped confiscation,
there is none that has not been liable to it.

THUS it clearly appears, that, in its origin, its character, and
its means, the government of that country is revolutionary ;
that is, not only different from, but directly contrary to, every
regular and well-ordered society. It is a danger, similar in its
kind, and at least equal in degree, to that, with which ancient
Rome menaced her enemies. The allies of Rome were slaves ;
and it cost some hundred years efforts of her policy and arms,
to make her enemies her allies. Nations, at this day, can trust
no better to treaties ; they cannot even trust to arms, unless
they are used with a spirit and perseverance becoming the
magnitude of their danger. For the French revolution has
been, from the first, hostile to all right and justice, to all peace
and order in society; and, therefore, its very existence has
been a state of warfare against the civilized world, and most
of all against free and orderly republicks, for such are never
without factions, ready to be the allies of France, and to aid
her in the work of destruction. Accordingly, scarcely any but
republicks have they subverted. Such governments, by shew
ing in practice what republican liberty w, detect French im
posture, and shew what their pretexts are not.

To subvert them, therefore, they had, besides the facility
that faction affords, the double excitement of removing a
reproach, and converting their greatest obstacles into their
most efficient auxiliaries.

WASHINGTON. 127

WHO then, on careful reflection, will be surprised, that the
French and their partizans instantly conceived the desire, and
made the most powerful attempts, to revolutionize the Ameri
can government ? But it will hereafter seem strange that their
excesses should be excused, as the effects of a struggle for
liberty ; and that so many of our citizens should be flattered,
while they were insulted with the idea, that our example was
copied, and our principles pursued. Nothing was ever more
false, or more fascinating. Our liberty depends on our educa
tion, our laws, and habits, to which even prejudices yield ; on
the dispersion of our people on farms, and on the almost equal
diffusion of property ; it is founded on morals and religion,
whose authority reigns in the heart; and on the influence all
these produce on publick opinion, before that opinion governs
rulers. Here liberty is restraint ; there it is violence : here it is
mild and cheering, like the morning sun of our summer,
brightening the hills, and making the vallies green ; there it
is like the sun, when his rays dart pestilence on the sands of
Africa. American liberty calms and restrains the licentious
passions, like an angel that says to the winds and troubled seas,
be still ; but how has French licentiousness appeared to the
wretched citizens of Switzerland and Venice ? Do not their
haunted imaginations, even when they wake, represent her as
a monster, with eyes that flash wild fire, hands that hurl thun
derbolts, a voice that shakes the foundation of the hills ? She
stands, and her ambition measures the earth ; she speaks, and
an epidemick fury seizes the nations.

EXPERIENCE is lost upon us, if we deny, that it had seized
a large part of the American nation. It is as sober, and intel
ligent, as free, and as worthy to be free, as any in the world ;
yet, like all other people, we have passions and prejudices,
and they had received a violent impulse, which, for a time,
misled us.

JACOBINISM had become here, as in France, rather a sect
than a party, inspiring a fanaticism that was equally intolerant
and contagious. The delusion was general enough to be thought

128 EULOGY ON

the voice of the people, therefore, claiming authority without
proof, and jealous enough to exact acquiescence without a
murmur of contradiction. Some progress was made in training
multitudes to be vindictive and ferocious. To them nothing
seemed amiable, but the revolutionary justice of Paris ; nothing
terrible, but the government and justice of America. The
very name of patriots was claimed and applied, in proportion
as the citizens had alienated their hearts from America, and
transferred their affections to their foreign corrupter. Party
discerned its intimate connection of interest with France, and
consummated its profligacy by yielding to foreign influence.

THE views of these allies required, that this country should
engage in war with Great Britain. Nothing less would give
to France all the means of annoying this dreaded rival : nothing
}ess would ensure the subjection of America, as a satellite to
the ambition of France : nothing else could make a revolution
here perfectly inevitable.

FOR this end, the minds of the citizens were artfully inflam
ed, and the moment was watched, and impatiently waited for,
when their long heated passions should be in fusion, to pour
them forthrj1 like the lava of a volcano, to blacken and consume
the peace and government of our country.

THE systematick operations of a faction under foreign in
fluence had begun to appear, and were successively pursued,
in a manner too deeply alarming to be soon forgotten. Who
of us does not remember this worst of evils in this worst of
ways ? Shame would forget, if it could, that, in one of the states,
amendments were proposed to break down the federal senate,
which, as in the state governments, is a great bulwark of the
publick order. To break down another, an extravagant judi
ciary power was claimed for states. In another state a rebellion
was fomented by the agent of France : and who, without fresh
indignation, can remember, that the powers of government
were openly usurped, troops levied, and ships fitted out to
fight for her ? Nor can any true friend to our government
consider without dread, that, soon afterwards, the treaty-mak-

WASHINGTON. 129

Lng power was boldly challenged for a branch of the govern
ment, from which the constitution has wisely withholden it.

I AM oppressed, and know not how to proceed with my
subject. WASHINGTON, blessed be GOD ! who endued him
with wisdom and clothed him with power ; WASHINGTON
issued his proclamation of neutrality, and, at an early period,
arrested the intrigues of France and the passions of his country
men, on the very edge of the precipice of war and revolution.

THIS act of firmness, at the hazard of his reputation and
peace, entitles him to the name of the first of patriots. Time
was gained for the citizens to recover their virtue and good
sense, and they soon recovered them. The crisis was passed,
and America was saved.

You and I, most respected fellow citizens, should be sooner
tired than satisfied in recounting the particulars of this illus
trious man's life.

Plow great he appeared while he administered the govern
ment, how much greater when he retired from it, how he
accepted the chief military command under his wise and
upright successor, how his life was unspotted like his fame,
and how his death was worthy of his life, are so many distinct
subjects of instruction, and each of them singly more than
enough for an elogium. I leave the task, however, to his
tory and to posterity ; they will be faithful to it.

IT is not impossible, that some will affect to consider the
honours paid to this great patriot by the nation, as excessive,
idolatrous, and degrading to freemen, who are all equal. I
answer, that refusing to virtue its legitimate honours would
not prevent their being lavished, in future, on any worthless
and ambitious favourite. If this day's example should have its
natural effect, it will be salutary. Let such honours be so con
ferred only when, in future, they shall be so merited : then the
publick sentiment will not be misled, nor the principles of a
just equality corrupted. The best evidence of reputation is a
man's whole life. We have now, alas ! all WASHINGTON'S
before us. There has scarcely appeared a really great man,
17

130 EULOGY ON

whose character has been more admired in his life time, or
less correctly understood by his admirers. When it is com
prehended, it is no easy task to delineate its excellences in
such a manner, as to give to the portrait both interest and
resemblance ; for it requires thought and study to understand
the true ground of the superiority of his character over many
others, whom he resembled in the principles of action, and
even in the manner of acting. But perhaps he excels all the
great men that ever lived, in the steadiness of his adherence
to his maxims of life, and in the uniformity of all his conduct
to the same maxims. These maxims, though wise, were yet
not so remarkable for their wisdom, as for their authority over
his life : for if there were any errours in his judgment, (and he
discovered as few as any man) we know of no blemishes in his
virtue. He was the patriot without reproach : he loved his
country well enough to hold his success in serving it an ample
recompense. Thus far self-love and love of country coincided :
but when his country needed sacrifices, that no other man
could, or perhaps would be willing to make, he did not even
hesitate. This was virtue in its most exalted character.
More than once he put his fame at hazard, when he had reason
to think it would be sacrificed, at least in this age. Two
instances cannot be denied : when the army was disbanded ;
and again, when he stood, like Leonidas at the pass of Ther
mopylae, to defend our independence against France.

IT is indeed almost as difficult to draw his character, as the
portrait of virtue. The reasons are similar : our ideas of
moral excellence are obscure, because they are complex, and
we are obliged to resort to illustrations. WASHINGTON'S
example is the happiest, to shew what virtue is ; and to deli
neate his character, we naturally expatiate on the beauty of
virtue : much must be felt, and much imagined. His pre
eminence is not so much to be seen in the display of any one
virtue, as in the possession of them all, and in the practice of
the most difficult. Hereafter, therefore, his character must be
studied before it will be striking ; and then it will be admitted
as a model, a precious one to a free republick !

WASHINGTON 131.

IT is no less difficult to speak of his talents. They were
adapted to lead, without dazzling mankind ; and to draw forth
and employ the talents of others, without being misled by
them. In this he was certainly superiour, that he neither
mistook nor misapplied his own. His great modesty and
reserve would have concealed them, if great occasions had
not called them forth ; and then, as he never spoke from the
affectation to shine, nor acted from any sinister motives, it
is from their effects only that we are to judge of their great
ness and extent. In publick trusts, where men, acting con
spicuously, are cautious, and in those private concerns, where
few conceal or resist their weaknesses, WASHINGTON was
uniformly great, pursuing right conduct from right max
ims. His talents were such as assist a sound judgment,
and ripen with it. His prudence was consummate, and
seemed to take the direction of his powers and passions ; for,
as a soldier, he was more solicitous to avoid mistakes that
might be fatal, than to perform exploits that are brilliant ;
and as a statesman, to adhere to just principles, however old,
than to pursue novelties ; and therefore, in both characters,
his qualities were singularly adapted to the interest, and were
tried in the greatest perils, of the country His habits of
inquiry were so far remarkable, that he was never satisfied
with, investigating, nor desisted from it, so long as he had
less than all the light that he could obtain upon a subject,
and then he made his decision without bias.

THIS command over the partialities that so generally stop
men short, or turn them aside in their pursuit of truth, is one
of the chief causes of his unvaried course of right conduct in
so many difficult scenes, where every human actor must be
presumed to err. If he had strong passions, he had learned
to subdue them, and to be moderate and mild. If he had weak
nesses, he concealed them, which is rare, and excluded them
from the government of his temper and conduct, which is still
more rare. If he loved fame, he never made improper com-

132 EULOGY ON

pliances for what is called popularity. The fame he enjoyed
is of the kind that will last for ever ; yet it was rather the
effect, than the motive, of his conduct. Some future Plu
tarch will search for a parallel to his character. Eparni-
nondas is perhaps the brightest name of all antiquity. GUI-
WASHINGTON resembled him in the purity and ardour of
his patriotism ; and, like him, he first exalted the glory of
his country. There, it is to be hoped, the parallel ends :
for Thebes fell with Epaminondas. But such comparisons
cannot be pursued far, without departing from the similitude.
For we shall find it as difficult to compare great men as great
rivers : some we admire for the length and rapidity of their
current, and the grandeur of their cataracts ; others, for the
majestick silence and fulness of their streams : we cannot
bring them together to measure the difference of their
waters. The unambitious life of WASHINGTON, declining
fame, yet courted by it, seemed, like the Ohio, to choose its
long way through solitudes, diffusing fertility ; or like his
own Potowmack, widening and deepening his channel, as
he approaches the sea, and displaying most the usefulness
and serenity of his greatness towards the end of his course.
Such a citizen would do honour to any country. The con
stant veneration and affection of his country will shew, that
it was worthy of such a citizen.

HOWEVER his military fame may excite the wonder of
mankind, it is chiefly by his civil magistracy, that his exam
ple will instruct them. Great generals have arisen in all ages
of the world, and perhaps most in those of despotism and
darkness. In times of violence and convulsion, they rise,
by the force of the whirlwind, high enough to ride in it, and
direct the storm. Like meteors, they glare on the black
clouds with a splendour, that, while it dazzles and terrifies,
makes nothing visible but the darkness. The fame of heroes
is indeed growing vulgar : they multiply in every long war ;
they stand in history, and thicken in their ranks, almost as
undistinguished as their own soldiers.

WASHINGTON. 133

BUT such a chief magistrate as WASHINGTON appears
like the pole star in a clear sky, to direct the skilful states
man. His presidency will form an epoch, and be distinguished
as the age of WASHINGTON. Already it assumes its high
place in the political region. Like the milky way, it whitens
along its allotted portion of the hemisphere. The latest
generations of men will survey, through the telescope of
history, the space where so many virtues blend their rays,
and delight to separate them into groups and distinct virtues.
As the best illustration of them, the living monument, to
which the first of patriots would have chosen to consign his
fame, it is my earnest prayer to heaven, that our country may
subsist, even to that late day, in the plenitude of its liberty
and happiness, and mingle Us mild glory with WASHING
TON'S.

[ 134 3

SCHOOL BOOKS.

I'ifSt published in the Palladium^ January, 1801.

IT

has been the custom, of late years, to put a number of
little books into the hands of children, containing fables and
moral lessons. This is very well, because it is right first to
raise curiosity, and then to guide it. Many books for chil
dren are, however, injudiciously compiled: the language is
too much raised above the ideas of that tender age ; the
moral is drawn from the fable, they know not why ; and when
they gain wisdom from experience, they will see the restric
tions and exceptions which are necessary to the rules of
conduct laid down in their books, but which such books do
not give. Some of the most admired works of this kind
abound with a frothy sort of sentiment , as the readers of novels
are pleased to call it, the chief merit of which consists in
shedding tears, and giving away money. Is it right, or agree
able to good sense, to try to make the tender age more ten
der ? Pity and generosity, though amiable impulses, are blind
ones, and, as we grow older, are to be managed by rules, and
restrained by wisdom.

IT is not clear, that the heart, at thirty, is any the softer for
weeping, at ten, over one of Berquin's fables, the point of
which turns on a beggar boy's being ragged, and a rich man's
son being well clad. Some persons, indeed, appear to have
shed all their tears of sympathy before they reach the period
of mature age. Most young hearts are tender, and tender
enough ; the object of education is rather to direct these
emotions, however amiable, than to augment them.

WHY then, if these books for children must be retained,
as they will be, should not the bible regain the place it once
held as a school book ? Its morals are pure, its examples
captivating and noble. The reverence for the sacred book,

SCHOOL BOOKS. 135

that is thus early impressed, lasts long ; and, probably, if not
impressed in infancy, never takes firm hold of the mind.
One consideration more is important. In no book is there
so good English, so pure and so elegant ; and by teaching all
the same book, they will speak alike, and the bible will justly
remain the standard of language as well as of faith. A bar
barous provincial jargon will be banished, and taste, corrupted
by pompous Johnsonian affectation, will be restored.

[ 136

FALKLAND. N°. I.

FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE PALLADIUM, FEBRUARY, 180.1,,
TO NEW-ENGLAND MEN.

Ji II E change of the American administration is an event
to create surprise and alarm.

How will it be considered, and what will be its effects ?
In Europe, it will certainly discredit republican principles.
Those who did not reason deeply, but took their opinions of
America as they found them most prevalent, will exclaim,
Paine, and Barlow, and half the book-makers, and more than
half the expatriated American travellers, have told us, that
republican principles were pure in the new world, as they
flowed from the fountain head, the people, and the rights of
man, and that plenty, contentment, and equality reigned, as
in the golden age.

WHATEVER interest our national vanity may take in these
representations, however land-jobbers may try to prolong
their credit by painting Kentucky and Tennessee as a new
Arcadia, the evidence of facts will prevail. It will be known,
that the government had enemies, and that our political mil-
lenium has bred thousands of malecontents. They will see,
that the men who said the constitution ought not to have had
being, are entrusted with its life and authority.

THEY are to be bound by duty and by oaths to recommend
to confidence what they have blasted with suspicion ; to en
force what they have resisted ; and to spare the prey they have
so long hunted, and at last taken. As the party in power has
called the government a bastard of monarchy, a government
already rotten, though not ripe, foreigners will conclude, from
the event of the election, that this is the publick sentiment
of the nation, and that the Americans are sick of their repub
lican experiment.

FALKLAND. 137

Is it not to all the European world the evidence of facts,
that we are at length fully convinced that the antifederalists,
who were against trying it, were very much in the right ?
Republican principles will hold, therefore, in Europe, nearly
the same rank with the principles of swindling. Nothing,
they will insist, can be so bewitching as their promise ; no
thing so bitter or so sure as their disappointment. Perhaps,
as Europe is not fit for republican forms of government, it is
best that they should not any longer admire what they ought
not to adopt, and what, if adopted, they could not maintain.

FOREIGNERS, who examine events with an eye of scrutiny,
will not hesitate to foretell, that the change is no little cabinet
scene, where one minister comes into power and another
goes out, hut a great moral revolution, proceeding from the
vices and the passions of men, shifting officers to-day, that
measures, and principles, and systems, may be shifted to
morrow. They will say, we know something of Mr. Monroe,
his astonishing complaisance to the tyrants of Paris, and the
no less astonishing rudeness and insult thrown by Barras on
this minister's government. By such a sample we may
judge, they will cry, of the spirit and character of the new
American rulers ; for he ib in credit, and his party associates
are coming into power. The Washington and Adams policy
has built up much. What have they built, that the artificers
of ruin have not already denounced, and meditated to destroy ?
Will Mazzei's correspondent cherish what he hates, or, in the
day of democratick wrath, spare what he dreads ?

THE banks and publick paper, the " sceleris vestigia nos-
" tri," will be expected speedily to fall. Commerce will be
represented, as in the days of opposition, when the first
frigates were voted against the Algerines, as too expensive
to be protected by a naval force. Down then with the navy.
Down goes commerce, the fruitful mother of British debts,
the grandmother and nurse of British influence. Why should
we maintain soldiers ? Colonel Fries is now attached to the.
administration, and; therefore, we may depend on him3 and
18

138 FALKLAND.

on men like him, and on some generals and brigadiers of the
militia, to defend the excise and land-tax laws from being
refirMlcd by the sovereigns of a whiskey congress, convened
at a sedition poie. Down then with the army— thut is already
down ; clown with the diminutive image of an army on the
frontiers, a miniature that preserves deformity and loses the
grace and resemblance. Let the sons of Logan come and
help us to establish the happy state of nature and primitive
virtue. What need of revenue more than impost will yield?
Retrench expenses ; get rid of the vermin that fatten
upon it, and very little revenue will answer. The blood
suckers will grow thin, perhaps die, but the fieofile will thrive :
they will be freed from exaction and guarded against cor
ruption. So long as their lands, and houses, and distilleries
pay tribute, they are not free ; so long as this tribute goes to
pamper an insolent upstart race of funding system lords, they
are not equal.

WISE Europeans will ask, what can protect the rights of
the few, when the rage of the many is thus directed against
them ? We have seen the French clergy stripped in a night.
One vote of congress would put the funded debt into the
family tomb with paper money. What will be the security
of right that is unpopular ? and what shall prolong the life
of the creatures of popularity ? You cannot keep the insects,
that buzz in the August sunshine, over winter.

To European observers the prospect of America will ap
pear to sadden, and its horizon to lower.

THERE is scarcely any evil, that has not been foretold in
our own gazettes, and that good men do not unfeignedly
apprehend from the change.

IF 'he violent jacobins should have it in their power to do
what they wish, there is not a shadow of doubt, that they
would make smooth work of all the most cherished systems
of the administrations of Washington and Adams. When
they heard of the success of their ticket, it is certain they

FALKLAND. 139

thought all this would be in their power, and they began to
make feasts and to exclaim :

Ag-gredere O mag-nos, aderi* jam tempus, honores,
which, in English, is, now is the glorious time for jacobins to
get offices.

IF they should administer the government according to the
principles they have avowed in the gazettes of the party, and
the examples in France which they have so much admired,
and if they should abolish and new model all that they have so
much professed to detest in the laws of congress, there is
indeed no curse of a thorough-going revolution, with which
we are not threatened.

FALKLAND N°. II.

TO NEW-ENGLAND MEN.

BEFORE evils have happened, it is the part of wisdom to
exhibit their worst aspects. When they are known to be
inevitable, or have actually occurred, it is no less the office of
wisdom to display their palliations or their remedies. It would
be cowardly, in despair, to aggravate their weight, or to sink
under its pressure. No : bad as our prospects are, they are
not hopeless. There is a sure resource for hope in ourselves?
the steady good sense of New-England will be a shield of
defence. Tu ne cede mails, sed contra audentior ito. The
publick spirit and opinion of this division of the union con
stitute a force, which the enemies of our constitutions and
fundamental interests will labour to corrupt, but will not dare
to withstand.

FOR New-England is not inhabited by a conquered people.
Their opinions will have some influence on the fiolicy, if their
commerce, navigation, and credit should have no hold on the
hearts of their rulers. Even conquerors, unless they were
willing to have their fighting work to do over again, would

140 FALKLAND.

choose to mask under the most specious disguises the viola-
lion of rights and the contempt of opinions.

THERE is evidence enough, that the party expected to rule
is not friendly to the commerce of any of the states, and espe
cially to the fisheries and navigation of the Eastern states.
We do not want, they argue, an expensive navy for the sake
of these ; nor these for the sake of a navy. Navies breed wars,
and wars augment navies, and both augment expenses, and this
brings forth funding systems, banks, and corrupt influence.

THESE few words contain the system of our new politicians,
which it is probable they will be, in future, as in time past,
complaisant enough to one another to call philosophy. Such
illuminism, such visions of bedlam have visited some famous
heads that do not repose within its cells, and condensed their
thin essences into schemes of political reform, projects of
cheap governments, that are to be rich without revenue, strong
without force, venerable with popular prejudice directed by
faction against them. Learned fools are of all the greatest, as
well as the most indocile. Accordingly, in despite of the ex
perience of all the world and of our own, in despite of common
sense and the dictates of obvious duty, such men, high in re
putation, and expected to be high in office, have insisted that
we do not want a single soldier, nor a single armed ship : that
credit is an abuse, an evil to be cured only by having none, a
cancer that eats, and will kill unless cut or burnt out with
causticks : that if we have any superfluity, foreigners will come
for it, if they need it, and if they do not, it would be a folly and
a loss for us to carry it to them. They tell us with emphasis,
and seem to expect our vanity will gain them credit for saying,
that America ought to renounce the sea and to draw herself
closely into her shell : let the mad world trade, negociate,
and fight, while we Americans live happily, like the Chinese,
enjoying abundance, independence, and liberty.

THIS is said by persons clad in English broadcloth and Irish
linen, who import their conveniences from England, and their
politicks from France. It is solemnly pronounced as the only
wise policy for a country, where the children multiply faster

FALKLAND. 141

than the sheep, and it is, inconsistently enough too, pronounced
by those who would have all farmers, no manufacturers.

NOTIONS of this stamp of sublimated extravagance have been
often in the heads of book-makers and projectors. Some
Frenchman suggested a scheme of like wisdom, to bind kings
and princes, not rejiublicks, to keep the peace, and be of
good behaviour ; and there are some declaimers, who would
have the Indians on the frontiers enter into recognizance, and
thus get rid of the expense and danger of a standing army of
Jour regiments. But they would have a militia, half a million
strong, made expert soldiers by training them, unpaid, till
they become equal to veterans. A militia system is right ;
these reformers, however, never touch truth but to distort it,
nor any sound principle but to drive it to extremes : they
would, therefore, make a militia system burdensome, unwieldy,
and corrupt, a standing army for faction, distinguished by a
strange badge, and arrayed against the government.

IT is indeed probable, that these wild theories have never
yet much disturbed the world by addling the brains of any
man who had its business to do. Such political sophists, till
lately, have been calmly despised, but never trusted with
power. Into the hands of such children it has never before
been thought prudent to put knives.

IF, to punish the manifold sins of this nation, God's displea
sure dooms it to be delivered over to projectors and philoso-
phists, the first of the sort who ever had the chance to play
the statesman, will they have the temerity ta undertake, and
will they accomplish their plans ?

IN free states, so long as they preserve their laws and their
tranquillity, the publick opinion is the efficient ruler. In times
of convulsion, it is jirobably less regarded in such states than
under a desfiotis?n, because it can be counterfeited better. Suppose
Mr. Jefferson should come into office : with all his refinements,
he is reputed a man of genius. His experience and caution,
we hope, will forbid his pushing schemes against the clear
sense of the people, or even of a very large part of them. If the
reionners should cry, perish commerce, fisheries, and naviga-

142 FALKLAND.

tion, live and prosper agriculture, yet the conception of this
precious project would be found easier than its execution.
Reformers make nothing of old establishments, of interests
that have taken root for ages, and of prejudices, habits, and
relations, rather less ancient and rather more stubborn than
they.

NEW-ENGLAND now contains a million and a half of inhabi
tants, of all colonies that ever were founded the largest, the
most assimilated, and, to use the modern jargon, nationalized^
the most respectable and prosperous, the most truly interest
ing to America and to humanity, more unlike and more supe-
riour to other people, (the English excepted) than the old
Roman race to their neighbours and competitors. This peo
ple, whose spirit is as lofty as their destiny, is settled on an
extensive coast, and, by situation and character, has a greater
proportion of its inhabitants engaged in navigation and mari
time affairs than France or England, perhaps than even Holland.
In spirit and enterprise no nation exceeds them. It is in vain
to say, things ought not to have been so, it would have been
better to have had half as many farmers. It is absurd to say
any such thing.

THE question for anew administration is not, what ought to
have been preferred three ages ago, but what must now be
destroyed. These great interests are too precious to be sacri
ficed, they are too powerful even to be neglected. They will
demand, and well they may, the effectual, zealous, assiduous
protection and fostering care of government ; and no president
will ever repel the claim with defiance or contempt. Protec
tion will be promised, and, perhaps, with the design to afford it.

IT is right for the publick to suppose, that Mr. Jefferson's
administration must be tried before it can be known. It is fair
and candid to make every presumption in favour of his inten
tions, that may not be discredited by his conduct. It is, however,
an effort of candour, but we must make it, to allow, that, like
most men of genius, he has been carried away by systems,
and the everlasting zeal to generalize, instead of proceeding,
like common men of practical sense, on the low, but sure

FALKLAND. 145

foundation of matter of fact. It is the forte, and it is also the
foible of genius, to be under the dominion of tiie imagination ;
and such men often judge of a law as they would ot a picture,
by the rules of taste. They can decide in such a case only as
the mob do, by acclamation. What ought to be the result of
experience, that a blockhead could both feel and express, is
comprehended in the province of sentiment ; and, for the curse
and confusion of a state, the plodding business of politicks
becomes one of the fine arts. The statesman is bewildered
with his own peculiar fanaticism : he sees the stars near, but
loses sight of the earth : he sails in his balloon into clouds and
thick vapours, above his business and his duties, and if he
sometimes catches a glimpse of the wide world, it seems flat
tened to a plain, and shrunk in all its proportions ; therefore he
strains his opticks to look beyond its circumference, and con
templates invisibility, till he thinks nothing else is real. New
worlds of metaphysicks issue from his teeming brain, and
whirl in orbits more elliptick than the comets. Man rises
from the mire, into which aristocracy has trodden him, shakes
off the sleep of ignorance and the fetters of the law, a gorgeous
new being, invested with perfectibility, a saint in purity, a
giant in intellect, and goes to inhabit these worlds. Condorcet
and Roland, and men like them, will be there, and Paine, and
Duane, and Marat, and Burroughs. There virtue will cele
brate her triumphs ; there patriotism will be inebriated with
the ecstacy of her fellowships.

I KNOW as little of the political illuminists as of the sect of
the Swedenborgians ; but to me it has ever appeared, that the
former are a new sect of fanaticks. They manifest a strange
heat in the heart, but no light in the brain, unless it be a fee
ble light, whose rays are gathered in the lens of philosophy,
to kindle every thing in the state, that is combustible, into a
blaze. A statesman of this sect will poise himself in his chair,
like an alchymist in his laboratory, pale with study, his fin
gers sooty with experiments, eager to make fuel of every thing
that is precious, and sanguinely expecting that he shall extract

144 FALKLAND.

every thing precious from the cinders and dross that must be
thrown away.

YET if we ascribe to Mr. Jefferson these vagaries, so dear
if they happen to be his own, so confidently trusted because
they have not been tried, it is natural enough to expect, that,
nevertheless, he will desist from his experiments as soon as
the results become too complicated and too uncertain for the
satisfaction of a philosopher. He may think it prudent to
wait till the world is more enlightened, before he prosecutes
his schemes to hasten the progress of its absolute perfectibi
lity. He will stoop to the prejudice that will not rise with him,
The family of labour, brown with West-India suns, or glisten
ing and rancid with whale oil, will tell him, that they had
rather tread a ship's deck than the wilderness, and prefer the
conflict with the storms of Spitzbergen, and the chace of the
spermaceti, where there is danger and glory, and associates to
share the one and to bestow the other, to scalping Indians,
or skinning otters, in roaming over an immeasurable waste,
where the silence is broken only by the howlings of the famish
ed wolves, and where the sight, even of these animals is less
dreaded and less dangerous than that of their fellows. They
will tell him, they cannot change their element, nor will they
submit, when politicians, with hearts colder than that element
at the pole, prove, en calculation, it is best that they should
perish in it.

FALKLAND. N°. III.
TO NEW-ENGLAND MEN.

THE project of transmuting the classes of American citi
zens, and con veiling sailors into back- woods -men, is not too
monstrous for speculatists to conceive and to desire ; but it is to©
vast for such men, and especially in four years, to accomplish.
They are not of the race of the Titans. They cannot pluck up

FALKLAND. 145

the iron-bound shores, with all their towns, and plant them on
the Miami ; and as long as the sea washes these shores, our
citizens will be navigators, and will claim protection in a tone
that will not be soothed by the answer, that a navy is expen
sive, or that the wilderness stretches out its welcome arms to
receive them. They will reply, so does death its more wel
come arms.

THE maritime interest of New-England is very essential to
the existence of every other. If it really is not, it is pretty
extensively believed to be, the root of our prosperity. Laying,
or threatening to lay the axe to that root, would excite such
an opposition as would deter the most vigorous despotism
from its purpose.

IN prosperous times, when men feel the greatest ardour in
their pursuits of gain, they manifest the most callous apathy
to politicks. Those who possess nothing, and have nothing
to do but to manage the intrigues of elections, will prevail
against five times their number of men of business. Each
description is actuated by strong passions, moving in different,
but not opposite directions. When, however, some of the
great interests of society are invaded, those passions change
their direction and are quickened in it. They are then capa
ble of defending themselves with all the vivacity of the spirit
of gain and of enterprise, with all the energies of vengeance
and despair. These, it must be confessed, are revolutionary
resources, for the defence of property and right, which can
not and ought not to be called forth on ordinary occasions.
The classes in question will be long in danger, before they will
be in fear, and if their adversary forbears to push the attack
in so rude a manner as to make that fear overpower all other
emotions, he may proceed, unsuspected and unopposed. They
will be as much engrossed with their business, as the political
projectors with their plans of reforming, till they destroy it.
It is probable, therefore, that the maritime interest of the
Eastern states is scarcely yet beginning to suffer apprehension,
or to think of measures of precaution. It will seem incredi
ble to the concerned, that interests so precious should appear
19

146 FALKLAND.

of small value even to illuminists and reformers. They will
not believe that the jacobin Catalines could be vile or daring
enough to assail them. They will say, supposing the new
president to be fond of power, it cannot be the interest of his
ambition to prosecute the attack, as it would expose his four
years administration to the most dreadful agitations, and ani
mate against himself, personally, enemies by classes and hosts,
whom he could not expect ever to pacify, nor always to over
power. They will, therefore, feel a sanguine confidence, that
banks and debts, publick and private, manufactures, navigation,
and the fisheries will be sure of tranquillity, and almost sure of
patronage. It would extend these pages too far to examine in
detail the grounds of this confidence. It will be sufficient,
briefly to observe, that it may be true, and perhaps it is, as the
democrats pledged themselves for the event, that the new pre
sident will be averse from violent counsels, that he is so from
principle, character, and policy, and that the new men will pur
sue the old measures. Yet it ought to be remembered that
the head of the party cannot wholly reject, nor, perhaps, very
materially alter, the system prescribed to him by his political
supporters. If he does, he will be a federalist. If he will sup
port principles, they will not oppose him : they will not, like
the jacobins, oppose for opposition sake. But to gain their
confidence, he must give them the evidence of facts: he
must act right. For confidence grows, if at all, without arti
ficial culture ; it will not bear the forcing of a hot-house. Like
a shrub on the high peak of a mountain, where it seldom rains,
it absorbs the dew, and though it grows not much in a year,
and is never lofty, its roots striking deeper than its top branches,
yet it grows for an age, and braves the tempests ; while the
weeds of popularity have tall, weak stems, from the rankness
of their growth, and perish on the dunghills that they sprout
from. i

IF he should cling with fond zeal to the schemes of his old
filends, the president will be strongly impelled by the party
current, and if he yields to it, he will soon cease to be their
leader and become their instrument. Indeed there are but

FALKLAND 147

two divisions of party in the United States, and he is a very
weak or very presumptuously vain man, who can think of
organizing a third party, that shall rule them both. Those
who possess property, who enjoy rights, and who reverence
the laws as the guardians of both, naturally think it important,
and what is better, feel the necessity of sustaining the control-
ing and restraining power of the state : in other words, their
interests and wishes are on the side of justice, because justice
will secure to every man his own. This is federalism. On
the other hand, those who do not know what right is, or if they
do, despise it ; who have no interest in justice, because they
have little for it to secure, and that little, perhaps, its impartial
severity would transfer to creditors ; who see in the mild aspect
of our government a despot's frown, and a dagger in its hand,
while it scatters blessings ; who consider government as an
impediment to liberty, and the stronger the government, the
stronger the impediment ; that it is patriotism, virtue, heroism
to surmount it ; that liberty is to be desired for its abstract
excellence, rather than its practical benefits, and, therefore,
that it is better to run the hazard of the greatest possible
degree of a perishable liberty, rather than to accept it with
those guards and defences, which to insane theorists seem to
make it less, but which, on the just analogies of experience,
promise to make it immortal ; those, in a word, who look on
government with fear and aversion, on the relaxation or sub
version of it% with complacency and hope ; all who from cre
dulity, envy, anger, and pride, from ambition or cupidity, are
impatient under the restraints, or eager for the trappings of
power.

ALL such reason, when they can, and act, and feel in a man
ner unfavourable to the support of the constitution and laws.
Their opinions and creeds are various, and many of them are
plausible, and seem to be moderate. It is probable they would
all, except the leaders, at present incline to stop short of the
extremes, to which the first steps are not perceived to tend,
but which, when they are taken, are inevitable. They are
impelled by a common instinct? as blind as it is steady and

148 FALKLANB.

powerful in its action. They are, by nature, instinct, habit,
and inteiest. opposers of the government. They consist of
foui classes, antifecleralists, democrats, anarchists, and jaco
bins, exceedingly unlike in character and in views, yet, while
they are all out of power, harmoniously concurring to promote
the common cause : once in power, it is probable they would
disagree. There can, of course, exist but two political divi
sions in the countiy ; to helpy or to hinder the administration
of its government. This description is so comprehensive as
to embrace all the active citizens, and leaves, for the formation
of a third party, neither materials, artificers, nor object.

SOME very vain and some weak men, and some very great
hypocrites, pretend to be of no party : while they arrogate to
themselves a discernment superiour to both parties, they affect
to be neutral and undecided between them. They claim the
title of the truest patriots, and to love their countiy with the
ardour of passion, yet they inconsistently condemn the vio
lence of both parties, and expect to have both believe that the
fire of their zeal subsists pure and unexpended in the frost of
moderation. Such men are often flattered as federalists, more
often used as democrats, but always held in a contempt that is
never more hearty than when it is discreetly suppressed.

WHOEVER is president will have too much sense to denounce
both parties, and to think of poising his weight exactly between
two supports, but resting upon neither. We know already,
that this policy, if it may be called such, will not be adopted
by either of the two successful candidates. He will shape his
system according to the federal or democratick plan ; he will
adhere either to the restraining doctrines, or to those which
counteract restraint : he must either serve God or Mammon.
The Washington and Adams administration proceeded on the
basis, that the government was organized, and clothed with
power to rule according to the constitution ; the democratick
theorists insist, that the people, meaning themselves, have a
good right to rule the government.

BY exciting the people to govern or to oppose government,
these leaders well know, that those who are thus irregularly

FALKLAND. 149

permitted to act in their behalf, will engross all their power.
Against this natural propensity to faction, a regular and vigor
ous government is the proper and only adequate security.
Of course, for that very reason, such a government will be
hateful to faction, and will be, if possible, usurped and destroy
ed by it. For such usurpation the nature of liberty excites
the desire, and affords the pretext and the means.

ACCORDINGLY, we have seen a faction, bitter against the
constitution in its passage, against the government in its ad
ministering the laws, and the magistrates and officers intrusted
with the execution of them. They have struggled for the
mastery, and after a persevering effort for twelve years, they
have succeeded in the late great election. Will this party
acquiesce, if the mere change of men should be the only fruit
of their victory ? No, the nature of faction itself, our observa
tion of jacobinism in France, our knowledge of jacobin charac
ters at home, forbid the idea. They will be greater malecon-
tents than ever, if new men should pursue old measures. Few
can be so absurd as to expect office ; multitudes do expect a
political millenium. Taxes are to be abolished : the occa
sions for taxes are to be for ever removed: armies are to
be no more raised : navies will be reduced, reduced as soon as
it can be made tolerably safe and popular, to nothing : interest
on the publick debt is to be reduced gradually, but at the
pleasure of those who think the principal a fraud and a curse,
an avenging devil and a tempter. Hopes, like these, are to be
disappointed or gratified. The president will know, that 'it is
impossible to do all that is expected, but he will readily un
dertake to do something, that every thing may not be required-
of him. He will recommend economy, and profess the pro-
foundest reverence for the sense of the people, which the united
Irishmen will of course apply to themselves. He will keep in
office such federalists as are willing to stay, and lend a prisma-
tick light of contrasted colours to his administration. He will
appoint a Livingston and a Gallatin to office.

HE will lavish his smiles on federalists, and his confidence
on two or three select democrats, and will be very glad, per-

150 FALKLAND,

haps, to get on his four years political journey in this seem
ingly equivocal manner as a president,

Placed on the isthmus of a middle state,
A being1 darkly wise and rudely great.

BUT if this would do for him, it would not answer for his
party : they will expect much and attempt every thing.

FALKLAND N°. IV.
TO NEW-ENGLAND MEN.

TO abolish the funding system is neither necessary nor
decorous. But there are as many ways to slay this enemy, as
to destroy human life ; by violence, by poison, by neglect. By
violence the interest may be reduced ; by taxing the holders
of publick debt as much may be drawn back in taxes, as is
paid in name of interest: this is poison. Or the laws for
enforcing the revenue and carrying into effect the engagements
of the government may be delayed, and finally not passed. The
Gallatin doctrine in regard to treaty appropriations furnishes
theory enough for all the paper money iniquity, that ever was
practised or imagined. The children of the publick faith may
come to a democratick government, and say, in the name of
justice and plighted honour, give us bread ; and such a govern
ment may say, as the state government of Rhode-Island have
heretofore said of their war debts, take your bread) offering a
stone.

THE new president will have a part of no common difficulty
to act. He will desire to conciliate the federalists, and with
out respecting their systems, might be willing to let them
alone. The democrats really wish to see an impossible ex
periment fairly tried, and to govern without government. It
is to be expected, that they will applaud their chief, who is
believed to be their true disciple, if he should take a fancy to
try it.

FALKLAND. 1$1

THEY consider government as a strange sort of self-moving
mill, or a ship, that, while it is acted upon by one element,
goes the better for the resistance of another. It is an even
chance, therefore, that they may deem the opposition of the
federalists as harmless and even as salutary as their own. In
pursuance of their plan, they will let the government alone to
go by its own inscrutable momentum. They will, as hereto
fore, deem it proper to be lookers on, not co-operators, unless
when it shall want either force or treasure, or even counte
nance and approbation ; and then they will summon each other
to their old post of opposition. Treasure corrupts, and force
oppresses, and, therefore, government shall have neither. The
immediate evfl to be apprehended to our government, is the
denial of its daily bread ; that sort of consumption which preys
on the balsamick parts of the blood, and leaves a residuum of
vitriol. The body politick, though bloated with a shew of
health while it perishes, and alive with double-concocted poi
sons, will shed a corroding and mortal venom on all it touches.
The laws will be jacobin ; for as soon as the democrats have
wasted their first energies, and their system falls into decrepi
tude, (and a year of democratick government is old age) they
will crowd themselves into power. They are a race distinct
from the democrats, and as much worse in their designs, as
the independents, in Oliver Cromwell's time, than the presby-
terians.

THEN expect amendments, that will make the constitution
a confederation. Then expect commercial regulations, which
will profess to cramp British commerce, and will cramp our
own. First revenue, wealth, and credit will take flight ; then
peace.

THE danger, therefore, to all the interests and institutions of
New-England, is not so much to be ascribed to the character
or designs of the new president, whoever he may be, or to be
feared in the first year of the new administration, as from the
progress of time, and the natural developments of faction.
There is universally a presumption in democracy that promises

152 FALKLAND.

every thing; and at the same time an imbecility that can
accomplish nothing, nor even preserve itself.

THERE is in jacobinism all the vigour, audacity, and intel
ligence requisite to take advantage of this state of things. The
democrats will be their journeymen to do the work, while they
claim the wages ; the pioneers, who will clear the way for the
procession of the jacobin triumph. The jacobins and demo
crats are, in fact, less agreed in their objects and principles,
though these latter do not know it, than the federalists and the
democrats.

IT would be improper as well as tedious to pursue, in a
newspaper essay, all the illustrations and details, that these
observations may seem to require. They are not, however, so
much addressed to men who are no federalists, but who might
be convinced to become such, nor to men who already wish
well to the good old cause of order, law, and liberty, yet who
are wreak enough to think it will be safe in jacobin hands, as
to the old federalists, the true and intelligent, who rightly
conclude, that, if our excellent government, in this the day of
its humiliation and imminent peril, is to be saved, it must be
by the correctness of the publick opinion and the energy of
the publick spiiit that is to impress it.

THIS is no day for despondency, or servility, or trimming.
It is as little to the purpose, to trust implicitly to the modera
tion of a jacobin administration, or to those smooth professions,
with which it will attempt in the beginning to make the feder
alists supine or treacherous in the cause, to make them cold in
its defence, or go over to the enemy.

THAT cause, though endangered, is not desperate. The
jacobins have pretended, that the people approve their designs ;
but their partial success has been owing to the concealment of
those designs. They have played the part of hypocrisy with
an audacity of impudence that is unparalleled : they have af
fected to be federalists, republicans, friends, admirers, and
champions of the constitution : they have recommended jaco
bin members of congress, as better watchmen for it than its
known friends : they have assured us, that Mr, Jefferson will

FALKLAND. 153

not subvert or neglect to preserve those institutions and in
terests, which he is known, and, it is believed, well-known to
condemn and abhor as much as his adherents. These protes
tations have had effect, and jacobins have been preferred, not
because they were such, but because it was believed, that they
were what they pretended to be. The wolves in sheep's
clothing have not yet been stripped : they are in the sheep-
fold.

LET them not, however, imagine, that the people, especially
of the Eastern states, are ready to co-operate in the work of
jacobinism. If, after having with some success deceived the
people, they should become such dupes as to act on the credit
of their own tales, let them beware. They will find it is easier
to deceive a high-spirited people, than to enslave them, and
safer to insult them by the imputation of political principles
that they abhor, than to plunder and beggar them by carrying
such principles into effect.

•[ 154 J

THE OBSERVER.

First published in the Palladium^ February, 1801.

1 H E French revolution is a sort of experimental political
philosophy, in which many foolish opinions are tried and found
wanting. The jacobins are, however, like quacks, who recom
mend their patent medicines. Experience has no effect on
them to cure their delusion. They say, their elixir of immor
tality has not yet been fairly tried, and that some aristocratick
patients stopped breathing only to effect the disgrace of their
nostrums. They would give a whole nation a quietus at once,
if they could only persuade them to swallow some liquor of
long life, some restorative pill, or some powder, that is to
sweeten the blood. Accordingly, the jacobin papers even yet
manifest, how little they learn from the direful experience of
France ; for even yet they dare to call the success of French
arms, the cause of liberty and republicanism. Whether we
have any fools left, who still flounder in this confusion of mind,
is more than I know ; but many jacobins, it is certJ.n, still
claim credit for their sincerity to that amazing extent of infatu
ation.

FRANCE is the only state in Europe completely military :
they are now what the Turks lately were, all soldiers, or all
liable to be made soldiers. Their spirits have been wrought
up by eight years of war, by revolution, and by the excesses
of what our mobocrats call liberty, into a ferment, equal to
that of the ancient crusaders. No state could be safe, while
France had the power to disturb them ; and every state that
thought itself safe in inaction has fallen : the only powers
that yet stand, are those that resisted with courage. France
has not changed ; the danger to other nations is not less, and
the only path to safety is thorny and perilous : it is to be
trodden in arms. Mithridates, Antiochus, Perseus, the Eto-
lian and Achaean leagues were successively lost, either by
seeking an alliance with ancient Rome, or by neglecting the

THE OBSERVER. 155

obvious policy of confederating with other states in like peril :
Perseus allied with Antiochus, or Mithridates with Sertorius,
might have saved the world from servitude. France now
claims empire, and will not hear rivalship. Austria and Eng
land can have no peace : they will fail, unless their arms should
so far cripple their foe, as to disable him from prosecuting
his scheme of universal dominion. France is as revolutionary
as ever : Buonaparte keeps down jacobinism at home, but it
deeply concerns him to stir it up in every other state, where
French influence is wanted. Jacobinism is, therefore, more
than ever to be dreaded by England and Austria, because its
operations in France are more artfully disguised by the govern
ment. It is more than ever to be dreaded in America, because
the moment approaches, when its success can be turned to
immediate account. What event could ever happen more
auspicious to her views, than to have an administration that
would bend the laws and commercial systems of this country
to the policy of that ? Mr. Madison's famous commercial reso
lutions were grounded on the idea of making America useful
as a colony to France ; not how we should make our trade the
most useful to ourselves. The New-England merchants had
sense enough to understand this delusive, this disgraceful poli
cy, and spurned at it. They will do it again, if it should be
repeated. We are still wanted by France, and to have us-) she
must spread jacobinism. It might, and would help her to
rule our citizens, though, if suffered to prevail in France, it
might hinder Buonaparte from quietly ruling Frenchmen at
home.

Library

' Californi*

SKETCHES OF THE STATE OF EUROPE.

N°. I.

First published in the Palladium, March, 1801.

A H E policy and conduct of the French, since the commence
ment of their revolution, exhibit very little of novelty, except
in the degrees of political intrigue, and revolutionary cruelty
and injustice. Wrought up almost to a state of phrenzy by
an unexampled combination of circumstances and events, they
have applied principles and adopted practices with a skill and
ardour, which have hitherto rendered them the terrour and
scourge of Europe. As this revolution has, at different peri
ods, involved the interests, and called forth the exertions of
almost all the European powers, it will be necessary to look
at their designs and relative positions at its commencement.

A SENSE of common danger, and those laws, which, in
peace and war, have always regulated the great republick of
the European states, impelled them to check, by force of
arms, the progress of that revolutionary system, which was
wasting Erance and threatening the rest of Europe. Accord
ingly, Prussia, Austria, Spain, Holland, and England, at an
eariy period, united to repress the spirit of jacobinism, and, by
timely and vigorous exertions, hoped to obtain security to
themselves, and restore tranquillity to France. But, in spite
of all opposition, her armies penetrated into Holland, Germany,
and Italy. In the management of this war France has imitat
ed the policy of the Romans, in detaching members of con
federacies against them, from their alliance. Sensible that
the united exertions of Europe would disable them from pro
pagating their principles and extending their territory, they
felt the necessity of separating the allied powers to accomplish
their ambitious projects. Of course, jealousies were excited
among them, separate interests were brought into view, the
blind pursuit of which tended to ruin the common cause by

SKETCHES OF THE STATE OF EUROPE. 157

diverting the collected energies of the coalition. The king of
Prussia, jealous of the house of Austria, and reluctant to con
tribute to its aggrandizement, soon entered into negotiations
for a separate peace, and, by scrupulously watching the inter
nal state of his dominions, and maintaining a military force
ready to act as occasion might require, has ever since been
able to support his authority at home, and hold a neutral posi
tion in the midst of contending nations. HolLind, spiritless
and p-inick-struck at the successes and power of France, yield
ed, with a feeble struggle, her resources and liberties into the
hands of French robbers and tyrants, who have, at length,
broken her ancient spirit, and still continue to drill and whip
her to the performance of the most humiliating services for
the great nation. Spain, paralyzed with fear, and willing to
make any sacrifices to preserve life, broke from the confede
racy in defiance of the most solemn treaties, and, like Holland,
submitted herself to the unqualified disposal of FiYJice.

BUT here it may be asked, why have the French permitted
the church and the throne to rest quietly upon their ancient
foundations ? The destruction of kings and priests, is the first
article in the revolutionary code : why then have they not plant
ed the tree of liberty in Madrid, and proclaimed the downfal
of civil and ecclesiastical tyranny ? Upon the ruin of these, they
have founded their claim to superiour light and wisdom. In
every other country, where, by arts and arms, they have obtain
ed a permanent footing, existing establishments have been sub
verted, and constitutions made after the newest fashion imposed
upon the people, for which nothing has been demanded but
submission, gratitude, and the " simple tithe of all they had.'*
Some powerful reasons, therefore, must have dictated a line
of policy so opposite to their professions and feelings, and so
different from that, which, in other countries, they have inva
riably pursued. It is not probable, that the French were, at
any time, doubtful of success in an enterprise against Spain
and Portugal. An army of thirty thousand men was drawn
out, and a general appointed to lead them through Spain to
the heart of Portugal ; but motives of policy checked the enter-

158 SKETCHES OF THE

prise, and led France to employ her armies, where their suc
cesses would not be followed by equal or superiour advantage
to her enemies. It was foreseen, that if Spain should be revo
lutionized, the commerce of her colonies in the West-Indies
and upon the continent would greatly increase the power of
England, and more than. balance the accession of strength
which would be gained from the plunder of Portugal. Had
the project for breaking up the ancient establishments of Spain,
and weakening the allies by the destruction of Portugal, been
carried into effect, the Spanish and Portuguese colonies would
have thrown off their dependence upon the mother countries,
and assumed the station of independent states, or put themselves
under the protection of England or the United States. In eith
er case, England would have felt, that her sinews of war were
made stronger -, and her ability of continuing it increased. Such,
then, have been the motives, which, while they have deterred
the French from adding Spain and Portugal to the list of new
republicks, have manifested the hollowness of their professions,
and their deep-laid schemes of unlimited domination.

WHILE the French were hot in the pursuit of conquest, a
grand alliance, in which the Russian emperour was to put forth
his energies, was formed for the purpose of driving the French
from Italy in a single campaign, and of carrying the war into
France. It is probable, that the emperour Paul engaged with
as disinterested views, as those of any member of the confede
racy, and with a determination to restore the ancient govern
ment of France. Suwarrow, a perfect master in all the schemes
and artifices of war, who alone knew to lead Russian troops to
victory, was entrusted with the chief command. In a few
•months he broke the force of the French in Italy, and pro
ceeded to the conquest of Switzerland. But here an untoward
combination of circumstances defeated his designs, and com
pelled him to retreat. The Austrians failed in the execution
of that part of the plan assigned to them ; the army in Swit
zerland under the command of Hotze had been routed, and
Hotze himself killed, by the unexpected descent of the army
of Lecourbe and Massena from the Alps ; and the troops of

STATE OP EUROPE. 159

Suwarrow, exhausted and without supplies, were obliged to saye
themselves by flight. Suwarrow was extremely exasperated at
the conduct of the Austrians, and, although the Russians co
operated with the English in an unsuccessful expedition to
Holland, the retreat of Suwarrow from Switzerland seems to
have been the first step towards the secession of Paul from
the coalition. Here was given a fair opportunity for court in
trigue to interpose, and represent the partiality of the English
for the Austrians, the mercenary views of the house of Austria,
manifested in a disposition to make no sacrifice of private inter
ests for the sake of the common cause. Paul, naturally capricious,
being led to suspect that the allies meant to weaken his power
by employing his troops as mercenaries against France, with
drew from the alliance with indignation. At this time, it is
probable that his attention was diverted with the idea of extend
ing his dominions in Turkey.

NOTWITHSTANDING Austria has been often charged with
selfish and mercenary views in the conduct of the war, it may
be doubted, whether, previous to the secession of Paul, she
acted inconsistent with the best interests of the coalition. Her
taking possession of the reconquered places in Italy might have
been with the view of throwing into them such forces, as would
have formed a barrier -to the future progress of the French :
in themselves, they were feeble and needed protection, and the
interests of the alliance probably demanded, that they should
be secured from the grasp of their enemies.

SKETCHES OF THE STATE OF EUROPE.
N°. II.

THE change of the politicks of Russia, is one of the chief
facts to attract attention. Whether this change originated
from mere whim and fickleness of temper of the emperour,
or from deep views of future advantage to Russia, we know
very little, and the little that we do know affords no very satis
factory ground even for conjecture. Politically speaking.

160 SKETCHES OF THE

Russia, as a member of the European state, is still an undis
covered country : it is an empire so vast, so new, so motley,
and so barbarous, it is such a Babel, whose tongues are yet so
confounded, a gigantick infant, that changes so often by its
growth, and so much oftener by its caprice, time is doing so
much, and accident so much more, to give it a determinate
impression and character, that no one has cause to be ashamed
of his ignorance of its politicks. It is, perhaps, after all a
question, whether Paul is not as rash as his father, Peter the
third, in his conduct, and whether a revolution, like that which
dethroned his father in 1762, will not soon happen.

BE that as it may, it is impossible to look at the present
position of the great European powers without being struck
with this contrast: in 1793, alPwere joined with Great Britain
in opposition to France, now all are leagued in opposition to
Great Britain. Perhaps it will be seen again, that a single
power is an overmatch for a confederacy.

THE pretexts of Russia, to justify this new system, are
frivolous ; for the British dominion of the seas is no grievance
to Russia. Sweden, and Denmark are mere satellites, and act
only as they are acted upon. Russia has no commerce to be
cramped by searches. Its industry is little, its trading capital
less, and its mercantile navigation nothing. Besides, the very-
British men of war, that thus rule the seas, are furnished with
Russian hemp, and cordage, and iron. The pretext, therefore,
amounts to nothing more, than that the English are their best
customers for naval stores. Lazy and poor nations must de
pend on such as are industrious and rich ; but it is absurd to
say that Russia is or can be the rival of England. A man
barefoot is no rival of the shoemaker ; a naked man in a cold
climate must depend on the woollen-draper. Russia sells a
superfluity, that it cannot use nor work up, and that nobody
would pay for, if England did not. Commercially speaking,
therefore, it seems obvious and certain, that the interests of
Russia are not pursued or regarded by the authors of the war.

BUT great nations make light of the affair of gain or loss in
trade, when political considerations intervene ; for if England

STATE OF EUROPE. I6i

tlid not rule the ocean, Russia could not : it would be France,
the little finger of whose despotism would be found thicker
than the British loins. Russia must have other motives.

TURKEY has been long a defenceless prey to any of the
powerful states, and would long ago have been devoured, if
their mutual jealousy had not delayed her fate. There has
been no period, since the Turks took Constantinople, in 1453,
when it was so easy for Russia to conquer the European pro
vinces of this paralytick empire. The rulers of France, at all
other times interested to save Turkey, have now no objects
but such as are personal and temporary. Buonaparte would be
glad to say to Paul, let me alone, do you conquer on your side,
I wish to meet with none of your interruption in conquering
on mine. France is at war with Turkey, and ei.ger to esta
blish her colony in Egypt, Austria is beaten, and England has
her hands full ; it would not be strange, therefore, if Paul
should be found to look for the recompense of his war with
England in the conquest of the Greek provinces, or in a treaty
with the Porte that would assure to him their final subjection.
This is but conjecture, perhaps not plausible. The second
son of the emperour Paul is named Constantine, and was
taught Greek to gain the affections of his intended subjects :
this fact has long been well-known. Europe is a gaming table,
where the bets are often shifted, and sometimes the players
as well as the luck. There is scarcely any thing that we are
not to expect to see staked by the gamesters ; especially as
they make no scruple, as in the case of Venice, to play for
what is none of their own.

IT is natural to ask, whether England can face a world in
arms. That armed world is very far from her happy island
and while she triumphs on the seas, they must keep their
distance. Famine might enrage her labouring people and con
vulse her within ; but the government is active in its measures
to prevent that evil. The contest is, therefore, left to the trial
of her resources. These are wonderful, and the exclusive
empire and commerce of the seas will not ultimately lessen
them. It is a splendid lesson to America of the energies that

162 SKETCHES OF THE

industry, and such a government aVwill protect its earnings,-
can command. Our free republican government, we trust, is
such a government ; and we hope our new rulers will not hate
commerce, as a New-England gold mine, nor check it, lest the
monied interest, as the democrats call the proceeds of trade
and fisheries, should surpass and outweigh the landed interest,
as they call the tobacco planters, Goers chosen people^ if ever
he had a chosen jieofile.

GREAT events are to be looked for, and, whatever they may
be, it is wise policy and obvious duty for our government to
disentangle our politicks from France, who wants to use our
strength, and to cherish as much as possible the commercial
spirit that will make America rich by industry, and thus to gain
strength, while Europe grows poor by war. Happy shall we
be, if, while we gain riches, we do not lose our spirit, and if
peace abroad shall not embitter dissentions at home.

IN this momentous contest between Great Britain and the
numerous foes who have joined with France against her, it is
probable, that the profits of our commerce will be enlarged,
and the danger of our being forced into the war much lessen
ed. If Britain, however, should be very unsuccessful, we might
then expect France would a second time require us, as Genet
did before, to vindicate our neutral rights by arms : in other
v/ords, to fight her enemy in her cause. It seems to be, there
fore, as clear as the noonday sun, that our interest, our peace,
and our commercial liberty require, that France should not, by
humbling and weakening England, be able to take the high
ground to command America to join her. We know, that
France would do it in a day, if she had, which, thank God !
she has not, the means to enforce her commands,

IT is a singular proof of the utter want of all patriotism in
the violent spirit of jacobinism, that the Aurora and Chronicle
are incessantly exhibiting the triumphs of France as the se
curity of America, and the overthrow of the British dominion
of the sea as our triumph and final emancipation. This is
senseless and absurd beyond measure. France has no enemy
that can face her at land. The British naval power is a conn-

STATE OF EUROPE. 162

terpoise. Each of these nations is thus a check on the other,
and both court friends among the powers who could help or
hinder their operations. Some little respect is thus procured
for neutrality ; whereas, if England were beaten at sea as
completely as Austria is at land, France would domineer
both on sea and land ; the civilized world would be subject
instantly to a despotistn, as arrogant, as rapacious, as unfeel
ing as that of Rome : her arms would be vigorously employed
to spread her power from the Ganges to the Ohio.

THE Aurora and Chronicle are desired to notice these
semiments, and they are invited to represent them as the
proofs of partiality for Britain, and of the force of British
influence : there are many hundreds of their readers weak
enough to accept such proofs as demonstrations. It would
be easy to retort on the jacobins, that their aversion to admit
such ideas is a clear indication, that they love France well
enough to help her to be the universal despot, and that they
love America so little they would rejoice to see her the
satellite of that despot. It is obvious, that the security of
feeble states must depend on the power of the great states
being, balanced and divided; and those Americans, who can
deliberately wish to see Britain conquered at sea, must be
traitors or fools.

IN the course of this great contest, facts and principles are
established of the most momentous concern to all indepen
dent nations. The first leading observation is, that wretched
is the condition of subjects, when the state itself is small and
feeble. Holland had no patriotism, because its strength was
little, and division and discord made that little less. It has
been a prey, and its wealth has been squeezed out by taxes
openly laid to fill the French treasury. A tax of ten per
cent, on income, excepting the poorer classes, who were to
be used as sans culottes, was imposed in the first year of
their slavery, six per cent, of which was for France. The
rich were declared lawful prize ; and France, the captor,
divided the spoil, like the lion in the fable. Switzerland, and

164 SKETCHES OF THE

the Italian republicks and states, exhibit the wretchedness of
the people, where the publick force is feeble.

ANOTHER observation is, that, where the executive autho
rity is weak, patriotism is extinct. Holland was uneasy?
because the stadtholder was the first magistrate. But, had
the execution of the laws been duly intrusted to him, he
•would huve resisted foreign influence with better success
than he did : the Dutch would not have lost their patriotism,
before they lost their country. Switzerland was more than
half conquered, before it was invaded. England, on the con
trary, has made it dangerous to be a traitor ; and neither
France nor England allows faction to grow formidable before
it is crushed.

AGAIN, we must remark, how much less resistance is
made by states that are confederated, or broken up into
separate sovereignties, as Germany, Italy, and Switzerland,
than by such as, like France and England, are one and in
divisible. Every Frenchman, in this country, has been a
stickler for state sovereignty ; and, in France, every French
man has cried, no federalism, the republick one and indivisi
ble. Accordingly) France has. taken care to make her neigh
bours weak and dependent, by clipping and slicing their ter
ritory into petty republicks: she will not suffer any body to
be great but herself. Germany formerly kept the legions of
Rome at bay, and now it is overrun in one campaign ; yet
Germany is scarcely less populous or warlike than France.
Italy has done nothing ; but her petty sovereigns have waited
tin event of battles, to see who should be their masters.
Switzerland has done nothing worthy of her liberty and an
cient glory.

Is it not, therefore, to be hoped, that, if great changes
must be violently made in Europe, they will be chiefly such
^is will consolidate the monstrous confederations of many
lieads without a common body or one soul, and that the
Biuallcr powers will be formed into great states, so as to

STATE OF EUROPE, 165

increase the future security for the liberty, and independence,
and happiness of their subjects.

WE take occasion to declare, however, that we are not
desirous to see the American separate state powers attacked.
As they are, let them remain, till experience suggests changes,
and the people are freely willing to make them. We do not
pretend, however, that a discerning patriot ought not to ap
prehend the ambitious abuse, that faction is trying to make of
the powers of the great states, Pennsylvania and Virginia, and
of the disturbance, foreign influence, and consequent weakness
of the national force. This point is of late much better under
stood in New-England.

166 j

PHOCION. N°. I.

JFIRST PUBLISHED IS THE PALLADIUM, APRIL, 1805.
BRITISH INFLUENCE.

B

RITISH influence is a phrase commonly enough used by
the jacobins without any meaning, or without any that is pre
cise. They hate the federalists, and they have some unknown
and incommunicable reasons for it, which are at once conveyed,
without being denned, by charging them with acting under
British influence.

CORRECT in ;uirers will, however, ask for definitions. Influ
ence, then let it be said, is political /ioiver9 and is exerted to
•modify or control, or fire-vent the fiubiick measures of the Ameri
can nation. It may be the private opinion of a few scholars,
that the English government is excellent in its principles, and
favourable to that sort of healthful, long-lived liberty, that
grows hardy by braving labours, and perils, and storms, and
that it will probably survive, and be in its youth, twenty ages
after the ephemeral despotisms of France are lost in oblivion.
These individual opinions, if they are erroneous, or extrava
gant, or obnoxious to popular prejudices, are not of a sort to
influence the publick measures of this country. They never
have done it ; they have never been popular opinions, and of
course have never had political influence. Nor is it material,
that some persons still respect England as the land of our
father's sepulchres.

THEY may think, that the early principles and institutions,
in which the first settlers of New-England were educated in
England, and which they brought over and planted here, entitle
that nation to our respectful remembrance. If even the Eng
lish character should impress some respect, as being sincere,
generous, and benevolent, if their magnanimous spirit in war,
their strict and impartial administration of justice, their enter-

PHOCION. 167

prise in commerce, their ingenuity in the arts, and the renown
of their poets, statesmen, and philosophers, should, in the eyes
of some admirers, throw a lustre over the British name, yet,
let it be remembered, those admirers are not numerous. They
dare not avow, that such are their sentiments. No, though we
sprung from English parents, the only language that can be
used, without the risk of persecution, is that of rage, abhor
rence, and contempt. At the hazard of disgracing our own
pedigree, we are summoned, six times a week, in the jacobin
gazettes, to treat the British subjects as the slaves of a tyrant,
whose spirit is as wretched as their lot. The publick opinion
is certainly not that of attachment to England ; and it is the
jire-uaUing popular sentiment only that can influence the mea
sures of our government.

IF Britain then has influence, or, in other words, political
power, it must be exerted in some other way, and by some
other instruments than such as we have mentioned.

THE base will say, and the base will believe, that Britain has
gold enough to buy friends and to carry a vote in congress as
often as her interests require the expense. A charge of this
nature seldom needs proof, or is much shaken by confutation.
The base will believe it without proof. They will consider
congress as a market, where virtue is for sale, and, if they look
into their own hearts, they will find nothing there to discredit
the evidence of such a traffick, or to enhance the terms of the
bargain. Integrity and honour are sounding words, and they,
who would pay a price according to the sound, are welcome to
the substance. They consider all virtue as a thing not wanted
for their own use, but as a false jewel, to be disposed of to the
best customers. Of all men I have ever known, the jacobins
have the worst opinion of human nature. An honest discharge
of duty in any station, is a thing incredible, because with them
it is incomprehensible. Accordingly, they begin with accusa
tions and calumnies of the foulest sort, and call upon us to
shew that they are not true ; as if the burden of proof did not:
rest on the accusers, but the accused.

168 PHOCION.

AFTER having charged Washington, Adams, Hamilton*
Pickering, Wolcott, and others, with being British partizans,
they assume the charge as a sentence judicially pronounced
and established, and affect to consider all solicitude to repel it
as an indication of a consciousness of guiit : the gulled jade
winces, they will say. But even this burden of proof, however
unfairly imposed, may be fearlessly assumed by the friends of
the federal administration of our government.

IT is proper to remark to the men who are observers of
human nature, that of all kinds of influence the first for igno
rant and vulgar minds to suspect, is downright bribery and cor
ruption ; it is, nevertheless, the last for even the profligate and
shameless to yield to. It is so coarse an instrument, that it
seldom answers the purpose. There are instances, and one is
said to have happened during our revolution, where a man,
who wanted integrity, made an outcry, when he had it in his
power to brag that it had been tempted. More than half the
indictments for rapes, are founded on the charges of women
of no virtue. There is so much shame in yielding to the offer
of a bribe, and so much glory in refusing it, that the latter is
often the better and more tempting bribe, which determines
the conduct.

SIR Robert Walpole, the celebrated English minister, is said
to have been a master in the art of corruption ; but when pub-
lick opinion was decided strongly for or against a measure, as
in the cases of the excise, the Jew bill, if I mistake not, and
the cruelties of the Spanish guarda-costas, his gold and his art
failed to secure a majority in parliament. In the late attempt
to unite Great Britain and Ireland, the project, in spite of
ministerial influence, was at first rejected by the Irish com
mons. The publick reasons were strong, the publick good
plainly called for the union ; yet passion and prejudice oppos
ed the measure. Ireland, by the union, seemed to be lost and
swallowed up ; and this secret dread, this inward horrour, of
sinking into nothing, outweighed all the forcible national argu
ments in favour of the measure. It may be added, that the
members felt a like decline of their own weight and influence;

PIIOCION. 1£9

it may, therefore, be said, with sir Robert Walpole, that it is
hard to bribe members even to do their duty, and to vote
according to their consciences : much less can they be bribed
to vote against them, or rather against the known voice of the
nation.

ALL experience shews, that to get a bad measure adopted,
when it is popular, is easy ; to get a good one is ever hard,
aguinst the current of even the most absurd and groundless
popular clamour. The side, therefore, to look for corrupt
influence is ever the popular side, because that is the unsus
pected, and yet the dark side : members, in that case, can be
praised for acting against duty. As many are willing to yield
their principles, who cannot part with their reputation, the
occasions are frequent, when members prefer acting so as to
please the people instead of serving them.

THE current of popularity has ever been anti-British, it has
ever been dangerously French. From hence it follows, that
bribes could not have been employed without great difficulty,
nor with much effect on the British side, nor without a great
deal of effect on the French side : there was a general wil
lingness to be deceived in regard to France. Mr. Monroe's
unexampled assurances, that Americans would submit to cap
tures, and rejoice in their losses, if it would serve the republick,
and Mr. Gerry's unaccountable, and yet unexplained lingering
in Paris, are proofs how deep-rooted and general the prejudice
is in favour of the French.

IT will be asked, also, if bribes were given by England, who
was bribed ? Washington ratified the treaty ; was he bribed ?
Was the senate and a majority of the house of representatives ?
If that is true, or only suspected, the democrats, who suspect
it, ought to go to France to enjoy " the pure morals of the
republick," instead of living in a country so corrupt, and, as
Fauchet said, so early decrepid.

IT is confessed, these are observations which tarnish a news
paper : they dishonour America, and yet the files of the
democratick gazettes repeat their audacious slanders of Bri
tish influence, in a style to extort a careful and circumstantial
22

iro PPIOCIOX.

examination of the charge. What will foreigners think, what
will honest and yet uncorrupted Americans believe of their new
government, such as free elections have made it, such as Wash
ington administered and left it, that, after twelve prosperous
years, it is scarcely tolerated ; nay, it is not tolerated, for it is
taken from the hands of its old friends to put it into other
hands ; it is arraigned at the bar like a culprit, and called to
plead to a charge of bribery and corruption. If those who will
rail could reason, the scandalous necessity of this vindication
would not be wholly useless: it would come out of the fire of
accusation the brighter for the trial. But there is as much
levity as malice in the jacobins : they forget the lie and the
confutation, and when the Chronicle repeats the lie, it is ever
fresh and unconfuted.

PHOCION. N°. II.

British Influence.

BRITISH influence, it has been shewn, could scarcely
operate at all in the way of bribes. Even if members would
sell themselves to a British emissary, let it be considered,
how few occasions could be sought or found to earn the wages
of iniquity. Unless their conduct was popular, they would
lose their seats, and it would be necessary every two years
to buy a fresh set. It is, therefore, clear, that British gold
could not buy influence against the course of popular preju
dices ; and if popularity were once gained, there would be no
need of bribing votes. Pretty good sort of men, we know,
will work for popularity ; very bad men could not work to any
effect for wages against it. Let it be remembered, that a
famous democratick member on the floor of congress once
said, when the French minister applied for anticipation of an
instalment of the French debt, before it was due, and there
was no money in the United States' treasury to pay more than
the current expenses and the interest of the publick debt:
There would be no merit in paying only when it was due, and

PHOCIOX. 171

tvhen it was convenient to pay : he rejoiced, he said, thai America
eould strain her ?neans, and hazard something ta shew her grati
tude. Bribery did not buy this sentiment, base as it was ; nor,
had it been unpopular, could money have bought it, for then
its intrinsick baseness would have blasted the speaker.

IT is the people, who are to be bribed, influenced, and cor
rupted. It is their folly, their prejudice, their best feelings,
and their worst, that are to be tampered with. A lie in the
Chronicle goes farther than a guinea, and ten can be coined
and pushed into currency, before even *** could be enlisted.
This is the lever to pry the world out of its orbit. This is
the power of necromancy, that can conjure spirits from the
deep, and they will come and dwell in Marlborough and in
Cambridge. The passions of the people are the engines of
influence ; and he who can move them seems to have the
faculty of working miracles. A stupid Chronicle, whose his
tory is false, whose argument is sophistry, seemingly too flimsy
to gull the mob, whose sneers always want wit, and whose
malice seems to be too blind to choose or to exercise its
weapons, even this wretched Chronicle, which one would think
has not vivacity enough to interest fools, nor talent enough to
satisfy its knaves, has influence, and it is French influence.
Somniferous as it is, yet, like the wand of Mercury, it has the
power to compel the spirits of a multitude.

BUT from speculative reasoning, let us turn our attention
to facts. Is there one measure of the government, in which
British influence has manifested itself: it would be silly to
suppose, that votes were bought to be lost. In what act has a
partiality for Great Britain appeared ? Surely our impost act
affords no such proof: American manufactures are deservedly
preferred. This would be a tender point for British partizans
to push. And be it remembered, the opposers of such prefer
ence of our own manufactures were, first to last, the Southern
jacobins. Had British gold been used for British purposes,
the federalists could have gratified their opposers by yielding
this point; but they did not, and would not ^ -eld it. A point
no less dear to Great Britain is her carrying trade. That was

172 PHOCION.

carried by federal votes to prefer American bottoms, and the
preference was 'carried so fur, that some sound friends to our
navigating interest were afraid of making a counteraction by
the British government. Does this look like British influence ?
If Britain had any thing at heart, it was this ; yet the very
clamorers about British influence were the oppose rs of these
measures. What did they do ? They wished to prefer French
fabricks and French bottoms to British ; and this would have
placed the burden of encouraging French manufactures and
shipping, as a tax on the consumers and shippers in America.
Does not this look like foreign influence with a vengeance ?
When Britain captured our vessels, in 1794, the federalists
were the only men, who said, negotiate first, prepare revenue,
ships, and troops, and if we cannot get justice, then fight. This
was Hamilton's plan, and all the federal members acted upon it.
The opposers of this plan were the accusing jacobins. They
Said, no ships, nor troops, nor taxes : let New-England fit out
privateers ; we will confiscate : that is our sort of resolution
and patriotism. Does not this fact, so authentick and solemn,
as well as recent, speak to the memory of the people, that if
foreign influence prevails, it is not among federalists that it
prevails. There is not a naked tribe in Guinea, whose spirit
is baser, or has yielded with more servile cowardice to foreign
influence, than the conduct of the democrats has manifested
towards France ; yet these are the accusers. Shame, if it had
not lost its power on these men, would strike them dumb with
confusion. Is there any point, that any administration, even
Washington's, could have yielded to Britain, so debasing as
the surrender of the ships captured from France ? There is no
condition of disgrace below it : without being vanquished, we
agree to pass under the yoke.

ON a review of the long series of publick measures, there
is none that bears the aspect of British influence. There has
been no attempt even to prefer any foreign nation to America,
except in favour of France. That shameless attempt, always
baffled, is still renewed ; and Buonaparte and his admirers still
hope, that we shall be French enough to enter the lists against

PHOCTON. 173

Great Britain, to assert the absurd novelties called the modern
law of nations.

FACTS do not lie. They speak plainly, that there has been
no poiitical power to control or prevent the measures of our
government, possessed or exercised by Britain. Yet this evi
dence will not silence or abash the impudence of the demo-
cratick slanderers of our government : credulity will still be
a dupe, nor will detection spoil the game of imposture.

PHOCION. N°. III.

British Influence.

IT is not their only reason, but it is one of very great effica*
ty with the politicians of the Virginia school, for exciting and
diffusing an aversion to the commercial system, that our com
merce is carried on by the help of British capital, and that, as
the trade increases, the mass of debt due to British merchants
goes on augmenting. Hence they assure us, that our trade
with England is a fruitful source both of corruption and depen
dence. Nay, these apostles from the race-ground and the
cock -pit tremble for our republican morals, so much exposed
to the contagion of our intercourse with the manners and fash
ions, the books and institutions of a corrupted monarchy. The
word monarchy is of course a substitute for argument, and its
overmatch : many hundreds will condemn the task, as equally
bold and mischievous, of the writer, who shall presume to
think, that we may deal with the subjects of a king, and make
estates, without making a set of king, lords, and bishops for
ourselves.

THERE is a previous question : are we more likely to become,
from observation, monarchy-men, than the citizens of London
are to adopt the maxims of our democracies ? Perhaps it will
appear, that our danger is not so great as theirs. Democracy,
by indulging the fervours of the popular spirit, is more dispos
ed to imbibe a zeal for proselytism. The everlasting bustle
of our elections, the endless disputations and harangues of

IH PHOCION.

demagogues, keep our spirits half the time smoking and
ready to kindle, and the other half in a blaze. Zeal is ever
contagious, and, accordingly, the only political propagandists now
in the world are the democrats. The monarchists have less
to do in the concerns of their government, and talk and wran
gle less about it. The spirit of subordination they have ; that
of proselytism they have not. When life, liberty, and property
are protected, they are contented, although their system should
appear to speculatists inferiour in its theory to the best of all
possible governments. Some men among us, and some of our
scribbling countrymen abroad, have been modest and wise
enough to imagine, that all the kings and ministers in Europe
were watching our republican administration with eyes of fear
and jealousy. The jacobin newspapers have assured us, that
all kings sleep un juietly, and are visited with horrid dreams,
because we are republicans. In 1794, "the Solomons in
" council" then advised us to cling to sister France, as the
only power, able, and, being a republick, willing to save us from
a royal coalition. The fact is, foreign statesmen have not
regarded America as much as they ought : we can see more
evident marks of their neglect than their dread of us.

BUT the other part of this common-place threadbare proof
of the preponderance of British influence remains to be con
sidered. We employ British capitals, and, therefore, as the
borrower is servant to the lender, they say, we are but passive
instruments in the hands of our creditors. There is no country,
where Capital is employed to so manifest and lasting advantage
as in the United States, because there is none, where the
objects of employment so much exceed the amount of capital
to be employed. WThen we give five or six per cent, for Bri
tish capital, and employ it at eight, ten, or in some branches
of trade, at twenty, or when it is occupied in clearing a wilder
ness almost boundless, and filling it with houses and settlers,
the augmentation of our wealth is obvious. The real estate of
the nation, that which must belong to posterity, is also prodi
giously increased : every year some hundred thousand acres of
Tjew cleared land are added to the pasturage and wheat fieWs.

PHOCION. ItS

Yet these advantages, great as they are, would be too dearly
purchased, if Great Britain derived a political influence over
our government from the operations of her wealthy capitalists.
It is not easy to see how she obtains a control over our
publick measures, from her subjects permitting our mer
chants, and speculators, and land-jobbers to acquire a control
over their wealth. Of all men the jacobins ought to abstain
from saying, that this is the influence of Britain over our go
vernment. They avow principles in regard to publick faith and
the rights of British creditors, that manifestly place British
property, intrusted to the safe-keeping of our laws, at the
mercy of a confiscating majority of congress, if, to the scan
dal of America, such a majority should be there. British
capital, deposited in Algiers, would be considered as a pledge
held by the Dey, liable to forfeiture in case the British govern
ment should give him occasion of offence. With ideas so
honourable to America, principles so truly Algerine, that
they would be nets to catch unwary Englishmen, it is truly
astonishing, that the jacobins should mistake so grossly as
to call this a source of British influence. One of their
objections to the treaty was, that it stipulates security to
this booty, and restrains congress from privateering ashore
and before a declaration of war.

THE British creditor, who claims his debt against a citi
zen, is dependent on the justice of our laws. All the influence
that he or his government can desire in the case, is just
payment ; if more is demanded, surely our juries will be
protectors of the rights of the debtor. Any honest American
will blush, if it is suggested, that British influence will be
necessary to prevent the denial of justice.

THIS brings us to consider the supposed influence arising
from the claims of British creditors. This is a question to
be tested by experience. If political power has followed
British debts, then the greatest display and most flagrant
abuse of that power is to be expected in the states, where
there is the largest arrear of debt. Yet in Virginia, which

176 PHOCIOJf.

owes fifty times as much as Connecticut, the British influ
ence has never been great enough to obtain payment, while
Connecticut allows an Englishman to exact it without reluc
tance or impediment. So far is Virginia from having been
enslaved by the British creditors, that her state laws have
been framed and administered so as to exclude lands, and I
believe, in effect, if not expressly, negroes from the opera
tion of process. A man might be a debtor there thousands
of pounds more than his estate would discharge, and live a
life of ease and luxury, defying British creditors and cursing
British influence, go to congress a patriot fiercer than a
dragon for liberty and equal rights.

WHO does not know, that many of the states were in the
hands of debtors, who made laws to keep off' creditors ? Who
is ignorant, that the constitution contains an article to restrain
such laws, and that this article soured into fermentation the
leaven of anti-federalism at first, and of jacobinism since ?
The great planters could not endure it, that equal justice
should strip them of the pre-eminence that they derived
from their lands, and that the laws, made for their own con
venience, had so long secured to them. So far have British
debts been from creating British influence, that they have
given rise to the most rancorous hatred. Happy will it be, if
the Northern people are not, in the end, made victims of that
hatred; if a system of irritation should not be cunningly de
vised, and blindly adopted, that New-England may be strip
ped of its earnings by captures, and that Virginia debts may
be wiped off by an unnecessary British war.

PHOCION. N°. IV.

British Influence.

THE first settlers of the British Northern colonies were
Englishmen. Most new settlements are first peopled by the
outcasts and scum of the mother country ; but New-England

PHOCIOtf. 177

can boast, that its ancestors were Englishmen, which, I con
fess, I consider as matter of boasting, and that they were
the best of Englishmen : they were serious, devout chris-
tians, of pure, exemplary morals, zealous lovers of liberty,
well educated and men of substantial property. There was
never a new colony formed of better materials ; never was
one more carefully founded on plan and system, and no
plan or system has discovered more foresight, or been
crowned with more splendid success. Our forefathers im
mediately displayed a zeal and watchfulness, that the new
society should be of the best sort, rather than of the largest
size. Instead of building a Babel of wild Irish, Germans,
and outlaws of all nations, such as would be suitable for a
*** to govern, and such as would have preferred his govern
ment, they excluded not only foreigners but immoral per
sons from political power and even from inhabitancy. This
has been called meanness and narrowness of spirit. New-
England, however, owes its schools, colleges, towns, and pa
rishes, its close population, its learned clergy, much of its
light and knowledge, its arts and commerce, and spirit of
enterprise to this early wisdom of our ancestors. Even its
growth and prosperity, though later, will not ultimately
prove less, than if it had been settled on what many call a
liberal plan.

IN consequence of our extraction and the institutions of
our ever to be remembered ancestors, New -England has a
distinct and well-defined national character ; the only part of
the United States that has yet any pretensions to it. There
are many truly enlightened citizens in the other states, who
have tried to introduce into them the schools, town divisions,
and other institutions of New-England. But if they could
do it, these institutions would be novelties, whose authority
would be for an age or two feeble and limited, in comparison
of old habits and institutions. Besides, most of the Southern
men of sense have prejudices in respect to the establishment
of a learned clergy, and obliging every small district to sup»
23

1~8 PHOCION.

port a minister. Without this precious security for the
support of good morals and true religion, the attempt will be
vain to adopt the laws and institutions of our ancestors.

NAY, popular prejudices against these institutions are
fixed, and have been cherished in most of the Southern
states. They, perhaps sincerely, consider these as buruen-
some and tyrannical restraints, and, without very well know
ing what they are, unite in disclaiming them as English,
and remnants of bigotry. Hence the laws and customs of
England are so much represented in Virginia as inconsistent
with, republicanism, that they have voted to instruct their
members in congress to procure their formal abolition.
Hence it is, that they are stated to be the badges and the in
struments of British influence. They say, an Englishman
from the midland counties, suddenly transplanted into New-
England, would scarcely know he was not in his o\\ n coun
try : he would hear the same language, he would observe
4the same manners. This close affinity and resemblance,
they say, is the occasion of a partiality for England that is
dangerous to our republicanism.

TRITE observations of this kind make impression on the
two-fold account, that they are plausible, and that they are
so loose and indefinite that they are not precisely understood.
It seems to be very possible, that we should reverence the
English common law, and the customs and institutions we
derive from our English ancestors, without loving or trust
ing lord North, or William Pitt, or any other minister of the
British government. This distinction was made very exactly
in the year 1775, when hostilities began The New-England
states are closely allied in aifection, as well as by resemblance
of character and manners ; yet it has never been the case,
that Massachusetts was able to exercise an inconvenient in
fluence over the affairs of Connecticut. It is, perhaps, to be
lamented, that the good sense and good order of Connecticut,
in its elections, have not had influence enough to procure the
adoption of their laws by their neighbours.

i»HOCION. 179

THUS it seems that fact stands, as it often does, in opposi
tion to plausible theory.

WE adopt the rules of justice from Great Britain, and as
long as we are allowed to enjoy good order, we shall desire to
provide for the administration of justice, and we shall continue
to think it a precious advantage, that we can adopt so many
important rules and principles to regulate its distribution, after
England has tried them, and proved that they will answer.
Surely this is a different thing from political influence. As
well might it be said, that by copying their books, or even
imitating their new invented labour-saving machines, we aug
ment their influence.

NEXT to the power of religion, a strict administration of
justice is the best security of morals. Foreign influence will
not greatly prevail, as long as morals remain uncorrupted.
The BrLish common law is, therefore, one of the bulwarks
against that corruption of manners, which will invite foreign in
fluence, in spite of all the frothy harangues that will ascribe it to
the wrong causes. A people thoroughly licentious and corrupt
(and democracy will make them such) will be betrayed, and
foreign states will reward demagogues for managing their
passions to mislead them. It is by practising on their hopes
and fears, that such men gain an influence over the people,
and after they have gained, they have it for sale.

BUT, for the very reason that we nearly resemble the Eng
lish, it will be peculiarly difficult to acquire that popular influ
ence. Let this be examined.

NOTHING is so odious or offensive as comparisons. When
we find that we are compared with others, we are uneasy and
displeased with the result of the comparison, unless we find
that the preference is assigned to ourselves. We . consider
those as our enemies, who thus degrade us, and we revenge
ourselves by noting the defects of their judgment and the
malignity of their dispositions, who have thus deeply wounded
our self-love. Comparisons that are thus frequently made,
render this angry spirit rancorous and habitual. But com
parisons of this Mnd are not made, unless with persons who

180 PHOCION

pretty nearly resemble us. It is believed to be hard for two
beauties to be friends/ Our pride is never hurt by our being
compared with those who are veiy unlike us, and even if the
superiority is assigned to the other party, the decision is ren
dered inoffensive by the manifest dissimilarity of the subjects
of the comparison. In like manner, we know that Americans
resemble Frenchmen so little, that there is no ground for invi
dious comparison ; but Englishmen we are like, and the pain
ful question to national pride is, which nation is superiour.
Partial as we are and ought to be to the American nation, we
cannot despise the English nation, we will not prefer them,
all that is left is to hate them. I ask with emphasis, is not
this done ? Is not the pride of Great Britain the theme of popu
lar irritation ? Is not their power held up as a bug-bear ? Is not
this fear an instrument to work upon the passions of our citi
zens ? and which of our demagogues could hold his authority
without using it ? We are too much like the English to love
them, because we love ourselves better, and we hate all compa
risons that mortify our self-love.

THE fact is, the hatred of England is excessive, and, as popu
lar passions are the agents of our political good or evil, exposes
our government to the extreme hazard of confusion and French
fraternity, and our peace to the shock of a British war.

PHOCION. N°. V.

British Influence.

FOREIGN influence has been traced with some attention
to the impediments and auxiliaries of its operation, within our
country. It remains to look without it, and to consider the
political situation of France and England, and to determine,
which of the two will be disposed and invited to employ her
influence in the control of our affairs.

THE counsels of both will be guided by their views of poli
tical good and evil. It is not believed, that France, insolent
with victory, and crimson with revolutionary crimes, will regard

PHOCION. 181

either shame or principle. It is not believed, that England
will wholly disregard the maxims and rules of civilized states.
But without really admitting, that France is on a footing in
point of morals or deference to the laws of nations, even with
Algiers, it shall, for argument sake, be conceded to those who
love her better than America, that France and England will
exactly alike pursue what their interest dictates. Be it so.

ENGLAND then is commercial. Her commerce thrives by
the immense superiority of her skill, industry, and capital. She
has capital enough to employ and to trust. Her interest, as a
trading nation, is to have good customers : her interest is, that
those who owe should pay. But the essence, and almost the
quintessence, of a good government is, to protect property and
its rights. When these are protected, there is scarcely any
booty left for oppression to seize ; the objects and the motives
to usurpation and tyranny are removed. By securing property,
life and liberty can scarcely fail of being secured : where pro
perty is safe by rules and principles, there is liberty. It is
precisely such a government that Great Britain wishes to find
and to sustain, wherever her commerce and credit extend.
She is, of course, so far as her commercial interest extends,
the friend of all governments that are friends to justice and
protectors of honest creditors. Where justice ceases, there
her credit stops. Stable governments, and especially such as
have a portion of liberty to give them enterprise and to make
them large consumers, are her best customers. If Turkey in
Europe had as much law and liberty as the United States, it
would demand, perhaps, as much manufactures as Britain could
supply. Britain is obviously and demonstrably interested, not
in the overthrow, but in the support of the regular govern
ments in existence, no matter whether monarchies or repub-
licks. Governments that will compel debtors to be just, are
all, in their form and administration, that British influence, in
this point of view, could be employed to make them. Accord
ingly, we do not find, that the trade of England with Holland
was ever disturbed, because the latter was a refiublick, and for
half a century destitute even of a stadtholder ; we do not find%

182 PHOCION.

that Englishmen were set at work to preach democracy in
Cadiz, though surely English liberty is as uniike Spanish des
potism as our republicanism. No, she was well content to
clothe the colonists of Spain, and to receive their gold, silver,
and diamonds, without stirring up a faction in Lisbon or Mad
rid to call first town meetings and then parliaments. Experi
ence has fully shewn* that commerce, with democratick and
uristocratick repubiicks, with monarchies and simple despo
tisms, has been alike cherished and prosecuted for ages, without
a suspicion, and certainty without an attempt on the part of
Great Britain to revolutionize their governments. It is not
difficult to shew, that stable liberty is the best condition of
nations for the advancement of her commercial interest ; yet
no attempt is recollected even to introduce this blessing insi
diously among her customers. The subjects of despots con
sume little and pay less : the diffusion of true and stable liberty
would augment her commerce and manufactures.

IT must be urged also, that the genuine liberty of English
men is unfavourable to the fanatical spirit of conquest. Every
able-bodied man at the plough or in the workshops of Birming
ham and Sheffield, is worth scarcely less than one hundred
guineas. A free nation will be prosperous, and a prosperous
nation cannot employ a man as a soldier without diverting his
industry from husbandry or the arts. It costs too much for
free thriving nations to be soldiers : the military spirit is no
more to be indulged, than a taste for luxuries by the poor,
because the objects of gratification are, in both cases, equally
out of reach. Rich states can poorly afford to wear armour :
the sword is the dearest of all tools. The ragged peasantry of
France, half employed, less than half paid, were ever ready to
listen to the enchanting eloquence of a recruiting sergeant.
War has ever been in France the trade first in credit and least
of all in rivalship with any other.

BRITAIN, with a moderate population, has, therefore, never
been in a condition to indulge the spirit of conquest. Terri
torial aggrandizement has, indeed, been her object in Bengal
and the peninsula of India ; but it was there in subservience

PHOCION. 183

tb her commerce ; and, let it be remarked, that the unwarlike
Gentoos offered little resistance to her arms : she employed
but a handful of Europeans to subject empires to the India
company. This seeming exception from the observation be
fore made is, nevertheless, a strong illustration of its truth :
she contended for territory for the sake of her commerce, and
great as the prize was, the means she could employ were
feeble.

IT may be said, therefore, on the ground of experience, that
the territorial ambition of Great Britain is limited and checked
by her situation, character, and means ; her insular situation,
her commercial character, and her pecuniary means. Being
an island, she cannot annex provinces to her empire ; being
commercial, she aims rather at profit than power ; and being
prosperous and industrious, her citizens are too dear to be
hired as soldiers. Britain cannot rais^ great land armies, and,
therefore, she cannot be so mad as to effect conquests that
would require them. Admitting that the United States would
submit a little sourly to her government, it would take forty
or fifty thousand men in camps and garrisons, to keep any
shew of authority over America ; and on the first symptoms of
resistance they must be doubled. Great Britain, as she is, is
not rich enough to afford to accept of the sixteen states as
provinces. If a spirit, as restless and turbulent as Pennsyl
vania has shewn, should accompany and succeed our submis
sion, we should certainly drain her treasury, and finally baffle
her arms.

GREAT BRITAIN pursues a policy of more moderation, justice,
and wisdom. Her naval superiority is employed to extend her
commerce : if she carries her sword in one hand, it is to offer
her commodities with the other. Her ships of war cannot
conquer extensive territories, nor preserve them in subjection.
Thus the means she possesses, and those she wants, almost
equally exclude her from territorial power. Perhaps the in
crease of her soldiers would necessarily exhaust the funds for
the support ol her ships, and, therefore, we are certain that

184 PHOG1ON.

she will not ordinarily attempt impossibilities ; she will not try-
to gain the possession of territory that she could not keep.

THE application of these remarks is easy. We conceive
that Britain has no motive, nor has she means to disturb the
government of the United States, by attempting to excite the
popular passions to control its measures. She cannot have
influence, because those passions will for ever run counter to
her wishes : those wishes, conformable to her interests, will be
to support the government, that the goverment may support
justice. The very nature of her power ensures an irreconcila
ble hostility with popular feeling in the United States. She is
commercial, and so are we. Excluded from some of her ports
in our own ships, rivals and competitors in all marts, inferiour
in all seas, and made especially in time of war sensible by her
arrogance and injustice, painfully sensible of our inferiority,
we shall hate her power, and suspect her influence, when she
has none, when she cannot have any, and when the hatred
gives influence to her rival, France.

PHOCION. N°. VI.

French Influence.

FRENCH influence has found, and will long find, both
motives and means to disturb and control the measures of any
honest and truly national government in America.

SINCE Rome, no state has ever manifested such exorbitant
ambition as France. Whether this arises from the nature of
her power, which has ever been military, or the extent of it,
which, for two centuries, has proved an overmatch for any
European state ; whether two centuries spent in efforts for
aggrandizement have formed martial habits, or whether the
national character be the cause rather than the effect of those
struggles, the fact is certain, that France is of all modern
states the most military, intriguing, and ambitious. Since the
revolution, all traces of every other passion have disappeared,
and the sword is the only utensil to occupy industry or to carve

rilOCIOX. X85

out its recompense. With that, Frenchmen reap where they
have not sowed : by waving that, they command the diamonds
of Brasil, and strip the churches of Italy. Good fortune,
scarcely less than Roman, has kindled a passion for conquest,
and blown up a pride, which the hostile force of the civilized
world would not intimidate, the empire of the world would
not satisfy. The avarice of a commercial nation calculates
its means and reckons up the value of them ; a conquering
nation disdains both gold and arithmetick, and computes
the presumption and audacity of its attempts, as surprises on
its plodding neighbours, and as the resources to ensure its
triumphs. Behold France, conducting her intrigues and array
ing her force between the arctick circle and the tropicks ; sec
her, in Russia, the friend of despotism, preparing to subvert
the empire of the Turks; in Ireland, the auxiliary of a bloody-
democracy ; in Spain and Italy, a papist ; in Egypt, a mussul-
man ; in India, a bramin ; and at home, an atheist ; countenanc
ing despotism, monarchy, democracy, religion of every sort,
and none at all, as suits the necessity of the moment. It may
be said, that it is nothing to the people of France, whether
their armies win or lose a battle : glory is not bread.

IT is incredible to many, that a nation should perform labours
and make efforts of the most perilous and astonishing kind,
merely for glory. Those, however, who reason against the
military passion as a chimera, arraign the authority of history.
What was it to the Romans, that Mithridates, or Tigranes, or
Antiochus, or Perseus, or Arsaces, did not respect the majority
of the Roman people ? Surely that did not affect the markets
or amusements of Rome. Yet never was there an objection
in the forum, never was there any repugnance to the enrol
ment of the legions for chastising the rebellious insolence of
any king, who had never heard of the Roman name, or who
did not tremble when he heard it. Accordingly, the soldier
citizens cheerfully engaged to march across deserts and moun
tains to the extremities of the then known world, to assert the
glory of the Roman name, and to fix the statue of the God
Terminus as far East as the shore of the Euphrates. The
sons of business, who do not feel this spirit, will be slow to be-

186 riiOCION.

large a portion of it, as the soldiers of Paulus Emilias, Lucul-
lus, or Crassus.

FRANCE is, probably, the most populous of European states,
if we except the wandering tribes subject to Russia. It is the
only state in which the sword is the only trade. Commerce has
not a single ship ; arts and manufactures exist in ruins and memory
only; credit is a spectre that haunts its burying place ; justice
has fallen on its own sword ; and liberty, after being sold to
Islimaelites, is stripped of its bloody garments to disguise its
robbers. A people, vain enough to be satisfied with the name of
liberty, are called free, and the fervours of its spirit are roused
to bind other nations in chains.

FROM all these circumstances thus singularly combined, the
whole physical force of France is its political force. There is
not a vein nor a purse, that its gigantick despotism cannot open
at pleasure.

IT is impossible that means so vast should be possessed,
without the desire to employ them. The obstacle to their
successful employment is England : in all her ambitious at
tempts, she stands in her way. She stands like a necro
mancer, herself invulnerable, and by her spells the giant France
is smitten with a palsy. With a spirit less generous than her
courage, and sometimes with an attention to objects unworthy
of her situation, England stands the bulwark of the civilized
world, the only obstacle to the universal despotism of France.

EVERY thing, therefore, concurs to give activity to French
influence. Her ambition, that seeks territorial aggrandizement
in all parts of the earth, and the impediments that the naval
power of Great Britain every where throws in her way, create
the necessity, the motive, and the means of influence. Being
inferiour at sea, she tries to gain friends or to subdue allies on
the shore of every sea. Accordingly, in Italy she obliges the
Genoese, the Tuscans, and the Romans to exclude the ships
and manufactures of England from their ports. She will exact
the like terms from the emperour and from Portugal. She will
never cease to stir up the jealousy and ambition of the em
perour Paul, till he has forced the Turks to banish the English
from the Mediterranean. Egypt is seized to secure a station
on the land, that may finally expel the English from India.

PHOCIOX. 187

Popular passions are courted in America, that they may ob
struct first, and then subvert and revolutionize the govern
ment. Credit, publick and private, is an anti-Galilean interest :
by subverting credit and abolishing debts, British hostility is
ensured, British commerce excluded. Besides, French islands
in every war are destitute of the protection of a naval force :
they are forced to depend on the resources of their own soil,
and on the supplies that the United States will furnish. The
neutrality, and still more the friendship and co-operation of
the United States, will be sufficient to preserve their colonies,
and, eventually, to turn the scale of power, in the contest for
empire, in favour of France. Having no trade of her own,
she is our customer, not our rival : her publick ships, fugitives
on the ocean, are seldom its tyrants. She is interested, and
has the opportunity, to foment the passions, which arise in
America from the use and, too frequently, from the abuse of
the British dominion of the sea.

Is it then difficult to explain by this theory all the conduct
of France and her emissaries, and the co-operation of her
partisans in America ? She has exerted her diplomatick skill to
seize Louisiana, Florida, and Canada, and employed her Genets
to enlist men in our back country to occupy them. She was,
in 1783, averse to our aggrandizement, lest it should make us
strong enough to stand alone, and to do without her aid. She
has opposed every step towards the stability of our govern
ment, and for the establishment of its resources and credit.
Her emissaries, in 1783, opposed the grant to the army, wish
ing to foment factions and divisions ; in 1787, the federal con
stitution ; in 1789, the funding system. She has been leagued
with every faction, as Fauchet's intercepted letter shews.
There is no doubt that the jacobin gazettes are in her pay.
The despatches from Mr. Gerry, Marshall, and Pinckney,
shew that she relies on her power over the constituted powers
of the United States. She has interfered in our elections ; and
she needs us as instruments of her hatred of England too
much to lose a moment, .or any practicable means, or to for
bear any expense, that will secure the preponderance ef her
influence in our counsels.

[ 188 ]

THE NEW ROMANS.
N°. I.

First published in the Palladium, September, 1S01.

1 O raise curiosity, wonder, and terrour, is the ordinary effect
of great political events. All these, but especially wonder,
have been produced by the progress of the French revolution.
To wonder is not the way to grow wise : to extract wisdom
from experience, we must ponder and examine ; we must
search for the plan which regulates political conduct, and its
ultimate design. To know what is done, without knowing why
it is done, and with what sjiirit it was undertaken, is knowing
nothing : it is no better than laborious ignorance and studious
errour. Such has been the crude mass of newspaper informa
tion, the blind and undistinguishing admiration of French vic
tories. It would be difficult to understand all that it is pro
fitable to know, in regard to these surprising events, if history
did not teach us, that like actors and like scenes have been
exhibited in ancient days, and that we may, if we will, learn
wisdom from the sad experience of the nations which have
gone before us.

SINCE the Romans, no nation has appeared on the stage of
human affairs, with a character completely military, except the
French ; and that character was mingled with the commercial,
until the revolution.

WITH less than half a million of citizens in her whole ter
ritory, according to the census or enumeration preserved by
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Rome, soon after the expulsion of
her kings, was ready to commence the conquest of Italy, a
country scarcely less populous than France. It was, however,
divided into petty states, many of which were as numerous, as.
brave, and as warlike as the Romans ; but there was an im
mense difference in their national character and maxims of
state. The citizens of Rome were all soldiers ; they had no
pay ; rll that rewarded their toils in war was pillage. Poor

THE NEW ROMANS. 189

as they were, and bands of robbers are ever poor, the spoils of
an enemy's camp, or the division of conquered lands, was am
ple reward for a fortnight's campaign. Their enemies were
near at hand and ever ready for combat ; of course, the term of
service was short, but the calls for it were frequent. In Rome,
therefore, there was but one trade, and that was war : all were
soldiers. Accordingly, Rome could array sixty thousand of the
firmest infantry in the world, while she had not five hundred
thousand citizens ; a province in Italy with a million did not
offer to resist one demi-brigade of French soldiers. What a
prodigious difference ! Holland is now kept in subjection by
twenty thousand French troops, and its miserable people are
ground to powder to pay and clothe these ragged masters for
the trouble they take to oppress them.

ONE eighth of the population of Rome were soldiers, the
best in the world ; the United States, with not less than five
million five hundred thousand people, are pronounced by the
democrats, to be beggared and ruined to such a degree, that
the children in every farm house will go supperless to bed to
maintain three thousand: nay, that this STANDING ARMY of
three thousand was raised with the design, and possesses the
force and means, as well as disposition,' to enslave the people
and to set up a monarchy in America. France is exceedingly
populous, and cannot need, if she could bear, as great a draft
from her numbers as Rome ; no modern nation has, however,
come so near being, like the Romans, all soldiers, as the French.
It is exceedingly difficult to state the proportion of soldiers to
other citizens. It has generally been thought, that Germany
had soldiers in proportion of one to a hundred. The distresses
of Austria and the zeal of the Hungarians may have doubled
the proportion, during the most trying periods of the war with
France. There is, however, reason to believe, that, in the ener
gies of Robespiereism, France, with her sixteen armies, ar
rayed within and without her territory nearly one twelfth of her
vast population. Without a merchant ship, her navy hauled
up, arts stagnant, capital spent, skill occupied in making arms,
Lyons blown up with gunpowder, the only place to find busi-

190 THE NEW ROMANS.

ness, to get bread, fame, and promotion, was in the army : no
modern state has been so nearly all military. This was not
the effect of her momentary distresses ; it was the plan of her
government, and a consequence of the character of her people.
Her government, ever changing hands, was ever the same in
spirit. Like Rome, who extended her conquests, while she
was convulsed with civil war, every change has breathed new
fury into the military enthusiasm of France. One passion,
like a tyrant, has banished all others : it is the only one, that
has aliment, or finds scope for its exercise. We see how pre
valent this passion is in every French bosom ; for the emigrants
who came here and to England, bespattered with the blood and
brains of their fathers, and wives, and kindred, strut, on the
news -of their victories, as if they were an inch taller on the
success of their oppressors, and they weep and mourn, when
their fleets or armies are beaten. In France, the age of chi
valry is not gone : a spirit, more ardent than the crusades
engendered, glows there, which burns not for liberty, but for
conquest. The money-getting and money-loving Dutch and
Americans can scarcely credit the influence of this passion.
Doubts of this sort are plausible errours ; and they oppose
metaphysicks, as to what ought to govern men, to the confound
ing and decisive authority of experience,^ which determines
what does govern men.

IT might, if it were necessary, be shewn, that the chivalry
of the military spirit ever was predominant in that country :
all that was respected was military. The lower classes were
emulous of this spirit, and they allowed that gentility consisted
in bearing arms : the common soldiers fought duels, affected
to be men of honour, and gloried in the distinction of wearing
ragged uniform and eating bad provisions for the grand mon-
arque. All this happened before the revolution. It might
be added, that all trades, that merchandise, and a condition of
labour were ever held base and degrading. It happened that
the merchants, to whom honour was not ascribed, wanted
honour and integrity. They were brought down, as might
naturally be expected, to the rank in which they were held,

THE NEW ROMANS. 191

There was nothing that ought to rival the splendour of military
distinction ; there was nothing in the state that did rival it. All
other passions were quenched ; all the energies of the human
character were concentred in the passion for arms. The
revolution came and sublimated all the passions to fury and
extravagance : it gave an immediate preponderance, nay, a
sole dominion to the love of glory. The national guards were
formed, and their epaulets and swords were worth more in
their eyes than liberty.

THE bloody struggle that has buried arts, and institutions,
and wealth, and thrones, and churches of God under heaps of
cinders, has given that strength to this passion, which might
be expected from partial indulgence and strict discipline.

VERY early the French perceived the affinity of their national
character with that of the Romans ; though it is, manifestly,
with the Romans alter thfcy were corrupted and had lost their
liberty. Their vanity instantly prompted them to emulate
this model, and to illustrate this resemblance : they have been
vain of their consuls and tribunes, and they have adopted the
haughty demeanour, as well as the insidious art of the Roman
senate. If modern nations are any better than barbarians,
they ought to mark the spirit of these new Romans, and exert
in self-defence a spirit of intelligence and patriotism, which
was wanting to the ancient world, and which might have saved
them from bondage. It is much to be desired, that your learn
ed correspondent would pursue his comparison of the French
and Roman fiolicy. It is what popular prejudice needs, and, I
perceive by the Aurora, it is what jacobinism dreads.

THE NEW ROMANS.

N°. II.

CONQUEST being the object of the Romans, and the spi
rit of the people being, in a high degree, martial, the next care
was to train up men to be conquering soldiers. They believed,
i hat they could; and that they ought to achieve more than other

192 THE NEW ROMANS.

soldiers ; and, therefore, they cheerfully submitted to the augr
mentation of labour, and self-denial, and danger, that this pre
eminence of glory and courage were bound to sustain. Their
patriotism was little less than self-love : they heard of nothing
but what was due to their country ; they lived, and acted, and
were bound by oath, if necessary, to die, for it. The republick
was a sort of divinity, which commanded their reverence and
affection, and which alone conferred the rewards that were
proper for heroes. This sentiment was strengthened by the
rigour of the maxims, which then regulated war: to be con
quered, or even to be a prisoner, was to be annihilated as a Ro
man, and for ever deprived of an inheritance of glory more
precious than life. Religion added force to these popular sen
timents, and a Roman false to them was more abhorred than
an Arnold.

SUCH was the force of this complex and skilful machinery,
that the Roman soldiers were heroes : they were all that men
could be. Their country was a camp ; and peace, a time not of
rest but of preparation and exercise. They were taught to carry
vast burdens, to march loaded like packhorses, to take fifteen
days provisions, to transport weapons heavier than their enemies*
entrenching tools, and much of the equipage of war, which is
now conveyed by thousands of waggons. This habitual endur
ance of hardship made it familiar, hardened them to the rigour
of climates and the most violent efforts : they were seldom
sick. Their celerity in marching, their perfect discipline,
their promptness to rally after a repulse, their unwearied per
severance in battle, were as extraordinary and as terrible to the
foe as their heroick courage. They claimed to be, and their
enemies admitted that they were, a superiour race of men.
This lofty opinion realized itself: they did not rely on num
bers, but thought it enough to send a popular general with two
legions, ( not sixteen thousand men) to overthrow the empires
of Tigranes or Jugurtha : they expected, and experience
justified their expectation, that the terrour of the Roman name
would be more effectual than legions. Accordingly, the sub
jects and allies, and even the children, of the invaded kings,

THE NEW ROMANS. 193

seldom failed to desert his cause, who was the enemy of "Rome,
and, of course, devoted to ruin.

IF this view of the military character of Rome has not led
the mind of the reader to mark its resemblance with the
French, it is not because the latter have omitted any means in
their command to form themselves on the Roman model. As
the French soldiers compose a large part of the able-bodied
citizens, they are a better sort of men than are found in the
ranks of their enemies. In England, for example, a prosper
ous commerce and vast manufactures leave only refuse and
scum for their armies ; the French soldiers are really French
men, and animated with a large portion of that fiery, impetu
ous zeal for the glory of the nation, which is so remarkably
characteristick. It is a subject, on which no Frenchman, how
ever his country may have misused him, can be cold. All that
taxes, that confiscation, or that foreign spoil could supply, has
been promised as reward ; and all that art or eloquence could
do, has been used as incitement. In France, too, as in Rome,
there is no claim of power and distinction, but what is derived
from the sword : the consuls were generals, and all the offices
were considered as in a degree military : no man can be great
in France unless he is a great general. The abbe Sieyes has
been made a consul, and, for wisdom in the cabinet, report
assigns him the first place : when Caligula made his horse a
consul, he did not make him as able and learned as Sieyes, but
he invested him with the exact measure of power that Buona
parte allows to his colleague. The army, conscious of being
the fountain of power, would as soon submit to the authority of
a woman, as of any man eminent in any other art than the mili
tary, and ignorant of that. When, therefore, all glory, all dis
tinction in the state, and the exclusive title to a share in the
government of it, are confined to the military, no wonder that
art has been carried to a degree of perfection far beyond the
attainments of the rival states.

IF those states were equally emulous of glory, if their sub
jects were all soldiers, and if all arts were held in contempt
that were not subservient to arms, they would be on a footing

194 THE NEW ROMANS.

with the French. But, since the discovery of America, the
systems of all the European governments have been commer
cial : they have patronised the arts that would procure riches,
as preferable to those which confer power. The publick sen
timent of every other nation has been rather that of avarice
than of ambition. The military profession has been, in conse
quence, separated from every other, and, in some measure,
degraded in estimation, as the only one that earns nothing,
and that is corrupted by idleness. The rest of the society has
become unwarlike, unfit for toil, insensible to glory. The
citizen, attached to his ease, his property and family, considers
it as both ruin and disgrace to become a soldier. Is it strange,
then, that the entire mass of France should overpower its ene
mies ? From the difference of character and situation, no other
decision could have happened, than that which has happened.

FRANCE, subject to the most energetick despotism in the
world, poured forth her myriads in arms. Formerly, a few
strong fortresses, or a ridge of mountains, were called barriers ;
and to subdue a country these obstacles must be overcome :
many campaigns were made by the famous Marlborough to
break the line of the iron frontier of France, as the Nether
lands have been called. The French have changed this sys
tem of war in a very extraordinary manner. By the immensity
of the mass of their armies, by their great e-xtent, occupying
the whole frontier of an enemy's country, by the astonishingly
numerous artillery, the rapid marches, the attacks made in
concert in many places at once, from the lower Rhine to the
Mincio and Adige, though at the distance of one hundred and
fifty leagues, by the unwearied renewal of those attacks, if the
first fails, and by the endless reinforcements of fresh troops, a
state is now subdued, as soon as, formerly, Marlborough could
take a town : the field of battle extends over several provinces :
the map of a country is not extensive enough for the plan of
a camp : all the heights and commanding positions are occu
pied in such a manner, that the two wings of the army are,
perhaps, one hundred and fifty miles apart : if one of the ene
my's posts can be passed by, or his forces are dislodged from

THE NEW ROMANS. 195

them, he must fall back to take the next best position in his
rear, and thus a country falls in a day, and, perhaps, without a
battle.

IT is evident, that this new method of employing so vast
armies, and this wasteful activity of manoeuvring and fighting
incessantly, by which a campaign has become unusually de
structive of human life, will require Europe to be more mili
tary than ever; all must be soldiers, or all will be slaves: and
this boasted and boastful revolution will tend to hasten and to
fix for ages both barbarism and despotism.

THE NEW ROMANS.
N°. 111.

ART cannot soon form the character of a nation, nor can
violence soon change it. Of all the barbarous nations, the
Franks were the most martial. Fourteen hundred years ago,
they formed their petty tribes into a conquering nation. The
greatness of the nation early inspired ambition, which several
able and warlike princes inflamed into a national enthusiasm.
While most other European states were feeble by their divi
sions, the French were powerful, and aspired to dominion and
influence over other nations. More than a thousand years ago,
their kings led armies into Italy, and parcelled out its govern
ments, as Buonaparte has done. The splendour of the reign
of Charlemagne fascinated the French, as much as their late
victories, and established the pretensions of their vanity to be
the great nation, the arbiters of Europe. The compactness as
well as immensity of their force engaged them in every war
that occurred. We know the power that habit has to form the
characters of individual men and whole nations : by continual
wars, the French lost nothing of the military spirit of their
barbarous ancestors. The crusades and the age of chivalry
exalted this spirit to its highest degree, and greatly distinguish
ed the French among the crusaders. The Edwards, and still
more Henry the seventh, of England, and afterwards the wise

196 THE NEW ROMANS.

Elizabeth, introduced commerce and the arts, and gave a new
turn to the enterprise of the English nation. It may be con
jectured with some appearance of probability, that the insular
position of England very early determined the English charac
ter towards the arts of peace. As soon as the struggles be
tween the king and the barons, and the rival houses of York
and Lancaster, afforded any respite from arms, and any in-
teriour order in the kingdom, two consequences resulted : a
greater portion of the English inhabited the country, the
country being as safe to inhabit as the cities ; the yeomanry,
or cultivators of land, increased in wealth and influence in the
state, and constituted the mass and body of the nation : hus
bandry forms a class of men, and a determined character for the
class, very unlike that of soldiers. A second consequence,
and connected with the former, was, that the English were
afterwards engaged less actively and, indeed, less dangerously
in wars than their rivals : except the incursions of the Scotch,
their wars wTere abroad, they were only occasional and of short
duration. When the reign of Henry the seventh, and the dis
covery of America, awakened the ardour of discovery and
commercial enterprise, this new propensity found little rival-
ship or impediment from the military passion, and, as it was
fostered afterwards by Elizabeth and the Stuarts, the English
soon became a shopkeeping nation, line nation bouti(juiere^ as the
French contemptuously denominate them. Hence, the passion
to acquire is characteristick of the English; the passion to
rule is predominant with the French : the one seeks gain ; the
other glory.

THE causes which have led to this national character, not
only lie deep in the most remote antiquity, but events of a
more recent date have contributed to decide and for ever to fix
their preponderance.

1 HE ravages of national wars frequently exposed the coun
try people to spoil and violence ; but the great lords and feudal
chiefs claimed and exercised the right of private vengeance.
Hence, animosities and endless civil wars desolated the con
tinental states of Europe. The only places of security were

THE NEW ROMANS. 197

the fortified towns. Thus it happened, that the countiy was
inhabited by a wretched, defenceless peasantry, without charac
ter or spirit, and subject to the corvee or ruinous slavery of
performing certain labour for their lords, and to a whole sys
tem of feudal exactions and oppressions so heavy and so dispi
riting, as to prevent their having any character of their own,
or any influence on that of the nation. Indeed, emulation will
be directed towards such qualities as are esteemed ; and there
was nothing in the condition of the labouring class to gratify
pride or to inspire it. The soldiers only were respected or
imitated : they gave the tone and the fashion to every tiling in
France. Cities were not much occupied in arts, and not at all
in commerce. They were crowded with retainers to princes
and nobles, who even wore their livery and fed at their tables :
they followed them in war, and their multitude was the rule,
by which the magnificence and power of the nobles was mea
sured and displayed.

THUS the taste and manners of the French were not formed,
like the English, in solitude and by the occupations of country
life. Fashion governed the crowds in cities, and the nobles
and their martial followers alone gave law to fashion : arms
engrossed all thoughts, the business of war and the conversa
tion of peace.

WHEN Louis the eleventh humbled the great lords of France,
and established a standing army, his sagacity discerned, that
this leading propensity of the French character was to be used
as the instrument to keep the nation in subjection. His succes
sors cherished the military sense of honour, as the basis and
guardian principle of the monarchy. The noblesse despised
trade, and an artisan, however ingenious, was one of the jieujilc,
or populace or mob.

FROM hence it followed, that arms alone were honoured : a
rich man couid not pretend to be a gentleman till he had serv
ed a campaign ; and the French noblesse preserved undimi-
nished, the gallantry, the impetuous valour thut courted danger,
which so much distinguished the age of the crusades and of
chivalry : that gallant race was extinct, excepting in France.

198 THE NEW ROMANS.

THE revolution began, and was in a great measure effected,
not by quenching this chivalrous spirit, but by awakening it in
the rabble. They were sensible to honour and shame, and
they claimed to be as brave, and, therefore, as much gentlemen
as the noblesse. This emulation, the more lively for being
newly inspired, animated the attack of the bastile, arrayed the
national guards, and spread the power of enthusiasm, like the
electrick fluid, over all France. The leaders of the revolution,
as skilful to guide as to excite the popular ferment, availed
themselves of these new energies to raise armies, and, after
having subverted the monarchy, to find work for them in a
war with Austria. The progress of this war, it was foreseen,
would throw all the political and physical power of France into
their hands, as the fervour of the revolution had already given
them absolute power over opinion. Never, in the history of
mankind, did the rulers of a nation possess an influence so
combined and so unlimited. Robespiere held all France in his
hand as a machine, he wielded it as a weapon, while the empe-
rour and the king of Great Britain, whom the French call
despots, could command only the surplus of the revenues, and
some fragments of the force of their states.

BUT the manner, in which this gigantick despotism has pro
ceeded, will best illustrate the popular sentiment, from which
it sprung, and the end, which alone it deems worthy of its
ambition and its efforts.

THE NEW ROMANS.

N°. IV.

IT has been attempted to shew, that military glory has ever
been the first object of desire, the most fascinating claim to
superiour consideration in France.

SAVAGES take their character from their situation as indi
viduals^ from their appetites and their wants, rather than from
any sympathy of national sentiment : hunger makes them hun-

THE NEW ROMANS. 199

ters ; fear, and, sometimes, revenge makes them warriours.
But in polished societies, men derive their national cast from
their intercourse with one another. Absolute want is felt by
few, and those who feel it, are without influence on the socie
ty. Man ceases to be merely an individual ; he models his
desires and his sentiments according to his relation to the
national body, of which he is a member. That class in society
which is the most respected, is the most imitated. It has been
shewn, that the class of artisans, or that of merchants, did not
hold that envied place in France, but that the men of the
sword did.

THIS being the national sentiment, it is obvious, that the
government could not disobey, much less offend or shock, that
sentiment, without losing, in a moment, all ks hold on the
popular affections. A dastardly policy, a dread of war with
Austria or England, would have blasted the new leaders with
disgrace. Taken, as they were, from the lowest classes of the
nation, they would have been charged with having souls as
mean as their condition, too mean to govern a republick, all
whose citizens claimed an equal rank with their high-spirited
nobles, and who required, that the great nation should adopt
the lofty pretensions, and display the impetuous courage, of its
military class. All the classes oF society claimed an equality,
and to be at the top, and thus the depression of ranks instantly
produced an elevation of national spirit. Believing that they
were all sovereign, and that France, by raising its spirit, had
raised its power, they were anxious to make such a display of
it, as should astonish and confound kings, whom they hated,
and the English nation, whom they envied and feared. They
considered their new liberty, as a new rank, and the highest
rank, which, of course, in their eyes, was military ; and that
this sudden dignity was neither solidly established, nor suffici
ently enjoyed, unless the jiower of France was displayed in a
manner to excite both terrour and wonder, to make kings
quake and their subjects admire. How dear a triumph for
republicanism ! How lofty a stage for equality I

200 THE NEW ROMANS.

INDEED it is not in the nature of things, that any strong-
popular impulse should be satisfied without action. The
more sudden, surprising, and violent the action, the more likely
is it to gratify and to prolong this impulse. All democracies
are governments by popular passions. These cannot exist and
be at rest ; they cannot be indulged, and yet kept within the
limits of moderation or principle. They sweep like whirl
winds, that are not stopped by desolation, but as they destroy,
they level obstacles and are quickened in their progress. They
pour like torrents from the mounudns, and, if they reach the
plains in their fulness, they are inundations unconfined by
banks : the violence of each soon scoops for itself a narrow
channel, and that is a dry one.

ONE auxiliary cause of the military passion of the French
has not been mentioned in its proper place ; it must not be
omitted in the examination of characters. The English, their
great rivals, ever thought themselves entitled to take rank as
a. free nation. The French could not vie with the English for
liberty ; but vanity, repelled from one course, sought and found
relief in another : we are the most gallant people of Europe :
these islanders, proud of their liberty, shall not be permitted
to despise, they shall fear us. Pride, hot in the race of emu
lation, and smarting with the wound of its imputed degradation
by slavery under an absolute monarch, grew prouder, when it
wore its armour and surveyed its trophies. In that contempla
tion, every Frenchman stretched into a giant, and felt per
suaded, that France alone was peopled by the race of Anak.

ALL this military fervour, with all its strength and all its
blindness, was transferred by the revolution into the people,
la Bourgeoisie^ who claimed to be nobles, and who knew no
other way to display it, than the usual and acknowledged one
for men of rank, by military distinction.

ACCORDINGLY, in the first era of the revolution, the formation
of the national guards^ and the establishment of rank equal to
veterans, awakened the sleeping pride of every heart, and
mingled the love of liberty with self-love too intimately to

THE NEW ROMANS. 201

allow them afterwards to be dissociated. Pride received a
new impulse to its current, but it ran in the old channel.

No sooner had the revolution attracted attention, than each
Frenchman felt his individual title to pre-eminence, as well
as that of the nation, to be subjected to a trial. He now
claimed to be freer than the free, to be freer than an Eng
lishman or American, as he had ever pretended to be the first
among polished and^ brave men. Their common sentiment
was, of course, that the friendship of those who resembled
them in liberty was a debt ; the submission of those who
were inferiour to them in force and courage, was a decree
of fate. The supposed hatred of kings, because they had
made a republick, their contempt, because they had made a
vile rabble rulers, alike stimulated their national vanity to
assert claims that were thus disputed, and, if possible, to
make them indisputable. They perceived, that France was a
stage, and that the curiosity of mankind expected something
magnificent in the scenes, something preternatural in the
actors, something that would dazzle and astonish ; that would
make criticism distrustful of its rules, and awe contradic
tion into silence.

THE revolution itself was one of those portentous, but rare
events, which originate from the operation of moral causes,
from the intestine agitation of the human mind ; a fermenta
tive power, that destroys the forms and the essences of the
political body, and yet in its progress separates a larger por
tion of that pungent spirit, that was formerly the hidden
aliment of its life, and is now its preservative from corrup
tion. But, while all France was steaming with this pervad
ing heat, and twitching with the spasms of enthusiastick pas
sion, its popular leaders, assuming imposing names, and
exercising a despotism that had neither known limits nor
definition, suddenly found themselves invested with a power,
that seemed miraculous. They could lead the nation out
like an intoxicated giant; or like a war elephant to tread
26

2Q2 THE NEW ROMANS.

down an enemy's ranks, and train him rather to be furious,
than intimidated, by his wounds.

THE spirit of the revolution, like that of the crusades, is
a fierce and troubled spirit : and, like that, it may take two
centuries to quiet it. The reformation of Luther, more
necessary and more salutary, entailed three ages of war upon
Europe. It is a prodigious power, which the monarchy
could not resist ; but which the chiefs of the military demo
cracy have successively attempted to guide.

IT may seem to most readers a paradox, that so much
weight should be allowed to the popular sentiment, in a coun
try so devoted to despotism as France. It should be remem
bered, that even a despotism has but a limited physical
strength : it must depend on other props than mere force ;
it must make an auxiliary of publick opinion. The grand
seignior governs Turkey by the aid of superstition, more
than by his janissaries ; and, even in France, where the peo
ple seem to be annihilated, and are nothing in the subordinate
plans of the government, the great objects of policy must
be chosen, and conducted, with no small condescension to
their wishes. For instance, a peace, that should strip France
of her conquests, that should tear the laurels from the army,
that should expose the French nation to any loss of the repu
tation that victory has conferred, would shake the throne of
the boldest usurper that has enslaved them. The claims of
their vanity have been exorbitant from the first, and every
new set of tyrants has promised still further to exalt that
vanity. Indeed they have kept their word !

IT is probable, that sensible Frenchmen have long ago
discerned, that they did not possess liberty, and that they
were not in the road to attain it ; but they appeared to be in
that road, and that illusion concealed their chains and soothed
their sense of disappointment. They could bear it, that they
were not freemen, it was what they were used and reconcil
ed to ; but they would not bear not to be conquerors. Their
love of liberty was tractable ; their vanity untractable. Ac
cordingly, they gloried in the enthusiasm of their efforts to

THE NEW ROMANS. 203

expel the Prussians, who, by invading, had profaned the ter
ritory of the republick ; although no tyranny could be more
odious or sanguinary than that for which they fought. They
have borne taxes, paper money, famine, tyranny in all its
worst forms, not merely with ordinary patience, but with
alacrity, because the French nation struck Europe with
admiration and tcrrour. While religion and morals took
flight, industry starved, and innocence bled, national vanity
has had its banquets : its frequent feasts have become its
ordinary living, and now it would pine without a prnfiismp
dainties. *

THE NEW ROMANS.

N°. V.

AMIDST all the confusion of the changes in the govern
ment of France, the rulers have formed their policy on the
basis of the vanity of the nation : every new set has promis
ed aggrandizement and glory to France, and the infliction of
a signal vengeance on its enemies.

THIS constancy in adhering to the same maxims of policy,
while the men at the head of affairs were kings only for
three months, may seem surprising. But Sparta preserved
nearly the same character seven hundred years, though
many violent revolutions occurred ; and Rome acted as long,
and even more uniformly, on the strength of the national sen
timent, that she could not exist at all, unless as a conqueror
and mistress of the wrorld ; yet Rome changed her consuls
yearly. The diversity of the character of her magistrates
was lost in the uniformity and force of her own.

IN the very beginning of the French popular government,
the national vanity was soothed by the incense of flattery from
its own demagogues, and the natural jacobins of every civil
ized state. Addresses from clubs, and from individual incen

204 THE NEW ROMANS.

diaries Were multiplied, and graciously received at the bar of
the convention. It seemed to be a Roman senate, sitting
judicially to hear the grievances of all nations, and to parcel
out the world into provinces. Anacharsis Cloots appeared,
and harangued the assembly, as the orator of the human
race. In November, 1792, the safety and independence of
all states was formally attacked by the decree, that France
would assist the rebels of all countries against their govern
ments. The apologists for French extravagances, after some
fruitless attempts to justify the principle of this outrage on
all mankind, have next endeavoured to palliate : they say,
less was intended than the words of the decree seem to im
port. When the conduct of France discredited even this
palliation, it has been since insisted, that the decree was
adopted in times of violence and confusion, and that it has
been formally annulled. All periods have been violent, and
marked with a more than Roman contempt of the rights,
as well as the opinions of mankind. But Gregorei, in his
laboured report to the assembly on the laws of nations, in
which this monstrous decree is supposed to be annulled,
expressly says, that the application of the principles he had
exhibited, is the right only of the nations, whose govern
ments are founded on the rights of man. The best proof,
however, that France has not, in form, renounced the decree,
is, that she has invariably adhered to it in fact.

IT appears by the publications of Brissot and others, that
the French rulers, like the Roman senate, believed it to be
necessary rather to employ the fiery turbulent spirit of the
nation in war abroad, than to let it employ itself in sedition
at home. It is a general opinion among the democrats of all
countries, that France was attacked by a royal coalition,
jealous of her republicanism. The fact is, the French be
gan the war in Flanders against the emperour, when his
towns were without garrisons, the fortifications had been re
cently pulled down, and the troops ordinarily kept on foot,
for their defence did not amount to half their complement.

THE NEW ROMANS. 205

WITH such a spirit as raged in France, and with such in
terests and means to turn the fury of the popular passions
against the emperour and the king of England, peace was
not to be maintained. When a whole street is on fire, can a
man set at his ease and say, my house is of brick ; let my
next neighbour burn ; the fire will burn out, and then the
bustle and danger will be over. Such are the speeches
made, and with great popular effect, to inflame the admirers
of democracy with a zeal for injured, invaded France.

Jam proximus ardet

Ucalegon.

The conflagration of every thing combustible in France ren
dered it impossible for other powers to be at peace ; and as
France will not and cannot change her political character,
Europe will not be permitted long to enjoy it. So vast a
power is a continual incentive to ambition ; and such a na
tional military spirit naturally leads to power. There are
many states in Europe still, that might tempt a conqueror j
there is not one, except Great Britain, that has the spirit and
means to resist him.

IT has been already shewn, that the only prevailing popu
lar sentiment was the military one. The excess of that
passion has enabled the government to maintain tranquillity
as profound, as if there was no war. The French saw tyran
ny in Paris, oppression in the provinces ; all commerce, all
credit, all manufacture was ruined ; but as an offset for want,
slavery, and ruin, there was victory, and all France shouted
for joy.

THE manner, in which this Roman power has been used,
is truly Roman. The neighbouring states have been made,
not merely the objects of conquest, but the instruments of
ambition, to effect more conquests. Except Great Britain,
Portugal, and Turkey, there is not one enemy left, whom
France has not made her ally. The emperour and the king
of Naples are to be dishonoured by a stipulation, that their

206 THE NEW ROMANS.

faithful protectors, the English, shall be excluded from their
ports. Portugal is supposed, by this time, to be forced to
adopt the like measure. To cut up Turkey, is said to be the
object of a late treaty between Buonaparte and the emperour
Paul of Russia. If this should be effected there will be ne\y
struggles and revolution ; the established order and balance
of Europe will be subverted from their foundations j and
happy will it be, if, after thirty years war, it should be set
tled again as firmly, as it was by the peace of Westphalia,
in 1648.

IT was in like manner the policy of Rome, to make use
of her feeble enemies to destroy such as were strong. The
jEtolians in Greece were first engaged to assist in destroy
ing Philip of Macedon. They, finding themselves duped and
enslaved by the Romans, called in Antiochus, king of Syria,
to assist them in their defence. The cities of Greece were
gained, and dexterously played off to destroy the liberties of
Greece. While Rome and Carthage were contending, the
great powers, still unconquered, took no part in the contest.
Thus Rome not only attacked them one after another, but
was always sure to have the assistance of an old enemy,
whom she had just conquered into an alliance, to overpower
a new one. Hannibal, after his defeat, fled to Antiochus : it
was then too late, for Carthage had received the law of the
conqueror. Antiochus interfered in the affairs of Greece, af
ter Philip of Macedon was humbled, and forced to be the ally
of Rome against him. Mithridates, king of Pontus, had no
ally, till his power was much enfeebled — then Tigranes join
ed him, in time to be defeated. Greece would have been
strong, if it had been united ; but its numerous governments
were jealous of one another, often at war, and ready to call
in the Romans to enslave them all. It seems astonishing,
that neither Macedon, nor Greece, nor Syria, nor Egypt
made treaties of mutual defence, or took any sensible mea
sure to employ all their joint forces in self-preservation.
The world would have been saved from slavery.

THE NEW ROMANS. 207

THERE is scarcely a single article of Roman policy, in
which we do not perceive the servile imitation of the French ;
and if Great Britain was a republick, as Carthage was, there
would be a faction in its bosom, devoted to France, strong
enough to ensure her slavery. The fall of Great Britain,
would quench every hope of the recovery of the indepen
dence of Europe : a new Roman servitude would spread over
the civilized world. The United States would be exposed
to new toils, conflicts, and dangers : faction would raise her
snaky head with new audacity, confiding in the support
that France would give to her efforts. We might be alarm
ed in time to see the approach of a foreign tyrant ; but we
should have to fight for our independence, or to resign it.

t 208 ]
RUSSIA.

first published in the Palladium, yuly, 1301.

Jt1 EW things are worse understood, than the condition of
the Northern powers in respect to England, especially Rus
sia. English capital has made their pot-ash first, and then
paid for it ; it has bought their hemp-seed, paid for plough
ing the land, and then purchased the hemp : advances were
made by English merchants of the -capital, many months
before the product appeared at market. This has been so
well understood, that American merchants have sent a pur
chasing capital, a year beforehand, into Russia to get hemp
and cordage. The democrats will cry out, this is colonial
dependence ; and ring all the changes on their set of bells.
It is true, countries half-settled and not half-civilized are, in
fact, dependent on countries that are blessed with good gov
ernment, and the laying-up of industry. Accordingly, the
war of Russia against England is the effort of poverty against
the very wealth that alone must employ it.

ERROURS in politicks so gross cannot be atoned for by mo
derate chastisement. It is impossible, that Russia. should
not suffer political evils of magnitude, in consequence of the
infatuated counsels of her deceased madman. Ignorance is
the proper soil for French principles to sprout in ; of course,
Russia, is in danger of being infected, and, after all, it can
not be the political interest of Russia to aggrandize France.
The naval power of Great Britain is, ever has been, and must
be favourable to Russia ; the territorial greatness of France
ever will be an impediment. France is interested to keep
Turkey from falling : France never wishes to see any power
great, but herself. Eternal barriers are placed between Rus
sia and France ; and no tricks of Buonaparte, no caprices
of Paul, can level them. The attempt to disregard the fixed
political laws of her being, will entail incalculable evils on
Russia : it is possible to play the fool in politicks, as in pri>
vate life, but never with impunity.

C 209 3
FOREIGN POLITICKS. N°. I.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.

JL UROPEAN events have long had such a monopoly of the
attention of Americans, that we scarcely find leisure or dis
position to backbite and persecute each other, as much as the
rage of party spirit requires. Our pride is often offended, that
our country makes a figure in the world so little conspicuous,
that others overlook it ; and we almost forget ourselves, while
we suffer our sympathy and reflections to be exclusively
engrossed by the events of the foreign war.

YET the champions of party ought to be consoled, for the
diversion of any party of our patriotick energies from the
domestick scene of controversy, by their own success in ren
dering foreign politicks subservient to their design. France,
though nerve all over, does not feel the dread nor the shame
of her defeats, nor the insolent joy of her victories, with more
emotion than our jacobins. They can allege, in excuse for
the deep concern they take in all the confusion and all the
injustice of France, that they are not mere speculatists, nor
subject to impulses that are blind and without object ; but that
their pure love for the people never ceases to animate them
enough to imitate what they admire, and to introduce what they
so long have studied, and so well understand.

THE men of sense and virtue have excuses too for their
anxious solicitude about European affairs : there, they may say,
faction culls her poisons ; and in that bloody field, at length,
we can perceive the antidote is sprouting. Already the Aurora
tells us, it is nonsense to talk of liberty under Buonaparte.
Nevertheless, if France should be superiour in the war, and
should dictate the terms of peace, our inbred faction, her faith
ful ally, would be superiour here. The civilized world can
enjoy neither safety nor repose, if the most restless and am
bitious nation in it, obtains what it has struggled for, a more
27

210 FOREIGN POLITICKS.

than Roman sway, and a resistless power to render the .interests
of all other states as subservient to its own, as those of her
Cisalpine allies. The forest that harbours one wild cat, should
breed many squirrels. Ambition like that of France, requires,
for its daily sustenance, tameness like that of Spain or Hol
land : if all her neighbours were like Britain, where could this
royal tigress find prey ?

So far, indeed, is the attention paid by Americans to the
affairs of Europe from being a subject of reproach, that, on the
contrary, no period of history will be deemed more worthy of
study by our statesmen, as well as our youth, than that of the
last twelve years.

IN France, we behold the effects of trying by the test of
experience the most plausible metaphysical principles, in ap
pearance the most pure, yet the .most surprisingly in contrast
with the corruption of the national manners. Theories, fit for
angels, have been adopted for the use of a multitude, who have
been found, when left to what is called their self-government,
unfit to be called men ; as if the misrule of chaos or of pan
demonium would yield to a little instruction in singing psalms
and divine songs; as if the passions inherent in man, and a
constituent part of his nature, were so many devils that even un
believers could cast out, without a miracle, and without fasting
and prayer. By stamping the rights of man on pocket hand
kerchiefs, it was supposed they were understood by those who
understand nothing ; and by voting them through the conven
tion, it would cost a man his life and estate to say, that they
were not established.

ON grounds so solid Condorcet could proclaim to the en
lightened, the fish women, and the mob of the suburbs of St.
Antoine, all disciples of " the new school of philosophy;"
Mr. Jefferson could assure Thomas Paine ; and even the cir
cumspect Madison could pronounce in congress, that France
had improved on all known plans of government, and that her
liberty was immortal.

EXPERIENCE has shewn, and it ought to be of all teaching
the most profitable, that any government by mere popular im-

FOREIGN POLITICKS. 211

pulses, any plan that excites, instead of restraining, the pas
sions of the multitude, is a despotism : it is not, even in its
beginning, much less in its progress, nor in its issue and ef
fects, libertij. As well might we suppose, that the assassin's
dagger conveys a restorative balsam to the heart, when it stabs
it; or that the rottenness and dry bones of the grave will
spring up again, in this life, endued with imperishable vigour
and the perfection of angels. To cure expectations, at once
so foolish and so sanguine, what can be more rational than to
inspect sometimes the sepulchre of French liberty ? The body
is not deposited there, for indeed it never existed ; but much
instruction is to be gained by carefully considering the lying
vanity of its epitaph.

THE great contest between England and France, also, shews
the stability and the resources of free governments, and the
precariousness and wide-spreading ruin of the resort to revo
lutionary means. We shall not, therefore, hesitate to present,
from time to time, the most correct and extensive views we
can take of events in Europe. -t

WE have made these observations, and we address them
with the more deliberation to the good sense of the citizens,
because it has been a part of the common place of democratick
foppery to say, what have we to do with Europe ? we are a
world by ourselves. This they have said a thousand times,
while they told us the cause of France was the cause of liberty,
and inseparably our cause. Every body knows, that the mad zeal
for France was wrought up with the intent to influence Ameri
can politicks ; and it did influence, and yet influences them. A
trading nation, whose concerns extend over the commercial
wTorld, and whose interests are affected by their wars and revolu
tions, cannot expect to be a merely disinterested, though by good
fortune it may be a neutral, spectator. Unless, therefore, we
survey Europe, as well as America, we do not " take a view of
the whole ground." And if we must survey it, and our in
terests are concerned in the course of foreign events, it is
obviously important that we should understand what we ob*

212. FOREIGN POLITICKS.

serve, and separate, as much as possible, errour from the wis*
dom that is to be gleaned by experience.

WE invite our able patrons and correspondents to assist us
in our labours ; and to exercise their candour, if, at any time,
we should present an imperfect or mistaken view of European
affairs : we shall not wilfully misrepresent.

FOREIGN POLITICKS. N° II.

GREAT BRITAIN and France are the primary nations ; it
is evident, that all the rest play a subordinate and secondary
part. The French adopt this opinion, and call France, Rome,
and Great Britain, Carthage. If this similitude were exact,
Britain would sink in the contest. But the British govern
ment is more stable than that of Carthage ; and, therefore,
faction is a little less virulent and a great deal less powerful.
Besides, the British superiority on the seas is more clearly, as
well as more durably established, and more effectively display
ed, than that of Carthage. The naval art was rude and imper
fect in ancient times ; and those, who then understood it best,
were little the better for that advantage. Duiliius, the Roman
consul, gained a naval victory with mere landsmen. The rea
son was, that the ships of war were rowed alongside their an
tagonists, and being grappled firmly together, the combat was
maintained, as in fights on land, by a body of soldiers on each
side. This being the ordinary event of a seafight, no wonder
the Roman soldiers, whose valour was the steadiest and the
best trained in the world, prevailed over the mercenaries of
Carthage. Every thing is different between England and
France. So superiour are the English seamen to the French,
so little now depends on the number of men, and so much
upon naval art, that the crowd of Frenchmen on board their
vessels are rather an incumbrance, than an effective force.
There is seldom a seafight, in which the French escape, al
though their crews are far more numerous than those of their
conquerors. Great Britain, too, enjoys a durable superiority.

FOREIGN POLITICKS. 213

There must be commerce, before there will be seamen ; there
must be a stable government, before there will be a general
spirit of enterprise and industry to create commerce. The
hands of labour will be weak, while its earnings are exposed
to rapine, as in France. It will be an age or two, before that
nation will get rid of her military tyrants ?nd her revolutionary
spirit ; and, till she does, her prosperity will be precarious, and
her naval power will be displayed, like that of Turkey, by
forcing awkward landmen on board ships. Despotism will
waste men and wealth, and in vain, to imitate the spontaneous
energies of industry and commerce, fostered by a free and
stable government. It may be added, that a naval power is
exerted with infinitely more effect now, than it was in ancient
times : every nation almost is now vulnerable in its commerce
and in its colonies ; the ruin of these produces a decay of the
revenues and resources for war.

IF then France affects to be Rome, she will not find in
Great Britain a Carthage. Nay, even in the military spirit of
her people, Britain, with the exercise of one brisk campaign,
would not be found inferiour to her boastful antagonist. The
campaign in Egypt evinces, that Englishmen can be good sol
diers, as well as seamen. Carthage, on the contrary, was too
much torn by factions to maintain a good infantry of her own
citizens : she hired strangers. But her cavalry, as that was not
a despised service, like the infantry, but attended with honour,
was excellent, and so superiour to that of Rome, that the Nu-
midian horse, under Hannibal, won every battle in the open
plains.

CARTHAGE was rich, and England is richer ; Carthage was
called free, England is really so ; and if the government of
Great Britain were either a democracy or a despotism, it, in
the first case, would have been shivered to pieces by faction,
and in the latter, by France, within the first four years of the
war. None but free governments are stable ; and none that
are purely democratick are free. We hope, that publick opin
ion will so effectually counteract the seduction and the threaten
ed preponderance of a violent jacobin administration, that our

214 FOREIGN POLITICKS.

own government, so wisely and happily combined, and so well
adapted to our circumstances and sentiments, will be found,
after some trials and agitations, to be both stable and free.

IN point of resources, it does not appear, that Britain expe
riences any want ; nor that France has, except in the violence
of force and tyranny,- any sort of security for a supply. It was
foretold years ago, that Great Britain was to be ruined and
beggared, and must have peace if she took servitude with it.
The opposition assured the nation of the event ; yet time has
confuted these predictions ; wealth goes on augmenting ; cre
dit is the steadier for the shocks that have waved its branches,
but could not stir its roots. The war is chiefly naval ; and the
seamen are now formed, and indeed have grown up in the wary
in sufficient numbers. The expenses, great as they are, are
not increasing, nor are they lavished in Germany, as they were
in 1794 and 1795. A long war creates a sort of commerce
for itself, and, as it were, makes a part of its own means.
There cannot, therefore, exist a doubt, that Britain is able to
continue the war. Her land never produced more ; aiid its
products never before were worth so much. Her industry-
never was greater ; and the demands for its fabricks were
never so little divided with competitors. Her tons of ship
ping and her trade are greater than at any former period.
Her capital is doubled ; and it is as sure to create employment,
as employment is to accumulate capital. These are the foun
tains of wealth, and they flow with an unexhausted and pro
gressively increasing stream. France is more nearly beg
gared by revolution, and Spain by the pride and laziness of her
people, than Great Britain is by the war. It is a great evil to
a nation to be obliged to exert all its energies to preserve it
self from French fraternity ; but it would be an- evil a hundred
times greater to fall under it.

THE proper test of the justness of these observations is not,
that they may appear to oftcnd against some popular preju
dices, or that the jacobin gazettes will interpret them into the
most abominable meanings : no one expects, that the jacobins
will content themselves with the truth on this subject. Inqui-

FOREIGN POLITICKS. 215

sitive persons, and fair-minded citizens, are desired to examine,
before they decide ; and even if they expose the errours of our
judgment, they \vill advance our purpose, inasmuch as we wish,
and it shall be our endeavour to extract from foreign events^
the sound materials for political instruction. We leave it to
the jacobin editors to cook for their readers a mawkish aliment
for prejudice and faction.

SUCH readers believe, that, while Great Britain is on the
verge of bankruptcy and ruin, while she is loathsome in her
corruptions, and humbled by her fears and her defeats, France
is renewing her youth and vigour, happy in her liberty, and
strong by her victories. A European would scarcely believe
there was in America enough of what, in other countries, is
called mob, to give currency to such glaring falsehood.

FRANCE has used, from the first, revolutionarij means, in
other words, 'all that violence could procure. While England,
with difficulty, taxed income, her rival could, by a decree,
seize the capital ; and after it had been sold to revolutionary
buyers, the next men in power could decree, that these were
royalists, and seize it a second time : every change brought
the whole stock to the new mint. One would expect, that
France was of all nations the richest in resources ; since it
could spend all, and then attack the new holders of property,
and spend it as often as the necessities of liberty might require.
By a formal decree, all property in France has been declared
In a state of requisition. The whole people were also enrolled
and in requisition ; and death, or confiscation of the offender's
property, ensued on disobedience. Never did Eastern des
potism claim more tremendous power, or actually exercise so
much. Yet violence is ever a temporary resource : it is a fire,
whose splendour is brilliant ruin. France is now destitute of
credit, of revenue, of all the ordinary means to extract resources
from her people ; and she has used and abused the extra-
ordinary, till they are almost as unproductive, as they are
odious. She looks for means abroad ; she looks to Portugal,
to Italy, to Spain, and to Holland. The field of plunder will not
bear two crops, and it is already barren. Buonaparte, of course,

216 FOREIGN POLITICKS.

sees the varnish of his popularity wearing off, and the hopes
of his slaves fading into disappointment. Already he fe^rs
the effects of that temper of the French, which is ever putient
under tyranny, but ever eager to establish a new tyrant. He
sees Egypt nearly wrested from his domination ; his splendid
promises of wealth and glory, in an expedition to subvert the
British dominion in India, vanish into air ; the powers of the
North, whom he duped and betrayed, beaten into a better
understanding of the law of nations, and embittered against
their deceiver ; Germany, though too discordant to oppose him
in the field, yet too powerful to submit to his dictates. The
secularization of the ecclesiastical states, is too much the con
cern of Russia and Prussia, to be carried along on the terms
of the treaty of Luneville. He also needs peace to consolidate
his power, and to give a breathing spell to his exhausted sub
jects, and also to induce his triumphant enemy to disarm.
But, if the English populace have bread, and the English
minister has sense and spirit, the affair of peace will be decid
ed on other grounds, than Buonaparte's desire to obtain it. It
will be asked, what has England to fear from war ? What has
she not to fear from peace ? War brings no burdens, of which
they have not had experience ; no evils, but such as they have
surmounted. Peace will be a new and untried state of being,
requiring all the burdens of war taxes, and war forces, and
giving no respite to Englishmen, while it affords one to France.
The revolutionary fire is not quenched ; and peace would leave
it to blaze out again in three years, with a fiercer conflagration
and a wider ruin than ever.

FOREIGN POLITICKS. N°. III.

FEW subjects are considered with so little care, and so
much party feeling and prejudice, as the political situation of
France. In respect to her neighbours, she is supposed to
possess a power as durable as it is preponderant ; and, with
respect to her own citizens, she is deemed to be as happy as

FOREIGN POLITICKS. 217

victory, plenty, and liberty can make her. The grounds of
these darling errours might be explored with advantage ; but
it would fill all the columns of a newspaper, and, indeed, the
pages of an octavo volume, to exhibit the subject in detail.
Men more competent, than we pretend to be, must write
books ; and persons more at leisure, than the majority of our
readers, will read them. A brief and rapid summary of the
most signal facts and principles, is all that we presume to
undertake, and even for that, the materials are scanty, and the
rage of party has confused and mutilated them. Every booby
democrat from France comes home to brag of the power and
splendour of the court of Buonaparte, and of the pure repub
licanism and equality of that nation, as if Jie had exactly the
same measure of understanding, as of patriotism. It is well
recollected, that, while Robespiere reigned, and the blood ran
in Paris, Bourdeaux, Lyons, and Nantz, in streams, that would
have turned corn-mills, every ship's captain arrived with such
a tale for the jacobin newspapers, as would suit the fashion of
our market : it seemed as if lies were bespoke and made for
customers. All was then represented as peace and order, a
stable government, and a contented, happy, prosperous people.
The zeal for France invited deception, and sheltered it from
scrutiny. The jacobins still prefer France to America, and
try very hard to " cover her with glory" when she is defeated,
and to represent the " cowardly English" as ruined, when they
conquer. Accordingly, Egypt is still, in the Chronicle, a
burying ground for the English, where they die of the plague,
and by the sword of Menou, and by that of the mamelukes
and Arabs, and thus the Chronicle thrice slays the slain ; yet,
probably, Egypt is now in the full possession of the English
and Turks. In this case, one of the supposed difficulties in
the way of peace is removed ; for if Buonaparte holds Egypt,
it can only be to make it a military post, from which, within
two years from the signing of a peace, to send forth armies
against the British possessions in India. A peace, on such
terms, would be a truce altogether favourable to Buonaparte,
unfavourable to England. If the spirit of the British nation
28

218 FOREIGN POLITICKS.

is up, the minister will not feel himself obliged to submit to
any such insidious, and indeed hostile, arrangement. The loss
of Egypt will remove this bone of contention.

YET, as France is too powerful to allow her neighbours any
repose, the only question seems to be, not whether England
shall lay aside her arms, for that is impossible, even in
.peace, but whether they shall be idle in her hands. While
she is in danger, she must make all her efforts in self-defence ;
and surely every jacobin has enough of the Frenchman in his
heart to allow, if he will speak out, that he would use the
opportunity of peace to prepare the force, and the first moment
of sedition or insurrection in England, or the decease of king
George, or any other favourable event, to employ force, to
overturn that cursed monarch^, and to strip that nation of its
navy, commerce, and power. In this state of things, it seems
justifiable for the British minister to ponder well, whether, if
safety lies, as it certainly does, in arms, which is the best
.time to employ them, the present, or some future, and not
distant time, that France shall seize, when England is in a
state of division and dismay. The question is important, and
concerns her political life or death.

IT has been already observed, that the British land and naval
forces cannot be much reduced on a peace. Austria is recruit
ing her armies, and will soon have need of them, especially if
she is believed to be unprepared for war. Peace will lessen
the energies of war, but not its burdens. It will, at least in
some degree, restore the commerce and navy of Britain's
great rival, while her own trade and industry, now secure in a
monopoly, will then have to struggle with competition. France
is now nearly stript of all allies, except such as she has con
quered. The independent powers are her foes in fact, or in
sentiment and policy. Would it not then be strange, if Britain
should purchase for herself a short truce, full -of treachery and
danger, that would refresh her enemy, and leave to her neither
a respite nor the hope of advantage ? The clamour for peace,
so loud, while bread was scarce, ought now to subside in Eng-

FOREIGN POLITICKS. 219

land ; and if they are not willing to be Dutchmen or Cisal pines,
they ought to be willing to be soldiers and seamen.

WAR is indeed a great evil, but peace, with danger anil
dishonour, is a greater. It has been the fashion to make it a
merit for any man to desire peace ; as if the question of peace
was to be considered in the abstract, and as if the war that
rages was not a case, like every other, to be examined and
pronounced upon according to its existing circumstances.

SUPPOSING, then, the war should continue, because the am
bition of France still thirsts for conquest and plunder, and
because the English government seeks, what peace would
deny her, security and repose, what are the chances of this
mighty and long-protracted contest ? England is all powerful at
sea ; France has hitherto proved victorious on land. Thus far
the odds are in favour of England, because she can annoy
France, she can insult her coasts, she can prevent her com
merce from reviving, and thus she -can distress her enemy in
his supplies and his finances. France threatens England with,
invasion : is not the threat ridiculous ? Two or three hundred
English ships and frigates will almost touch one another in the
channel, and effectually prevent a fleet of French flat -bottomed
boats from landing an army by surprise. An English army of
three hundred thousand men, fighting for life, liberty, and
property, would destroy any hostile force that might be dis
embarked. The immense land force of France seems to be,
therefore, nearly useless in the war with England. It serves,
however, to consume her own resources, and to keep alive the
jealousy and hatred of her neighbours. Rome subsisted her
armies by plunder: a war found its own means of supply ; and
from the time of Perseus to the consulship of Hirtius and
Pansa, the spoils of Macedon and other conquered states, sup
plied all expenses ; so that, for more than one hundred years,
no taxes were imposed on the Roman people. Let it be noted,
however, that modern wars glean infinitely less from the field
of plunder ; while they cost, for artillery, sieges, and cavalry,
infinitely more. To this add the Roman soldiers feared the
Gods, and religiously kept their oath, to bring all the plunder

220 FOREIGN POLITICKS.

into the publick stock ; the Roman senate faithfully and fru
gally administered this treasure. France plunders Europe ;
and her tyrants plunder France : it is easier for her to beggar
Italy, than to satisfy her commissaries. Her trade is war, and
in a maritime strife this cannot be a gainful trade. The con
fusion of twelve years is not to be retrieved by establishing
martial law for eighteen months. The first consul may issue
his general orders, that the revolution is over ; all France may
be hushed to silence, like a camp ; yet it will not cease to suf
fer, while it trembles. With a fruitful territory, a vast addi
tion of subjects by her conquests, and an energy of military
government, that can take the last dollar, and a man's life, if
he seems to give it loathly, it might appear, that her pecuniary
means are not to be exhausted. Let it, however, be noted,
that these very conquests require a large part of her force and
treasure to preserve them. Perhaps they now require as
much as they supply. Already plundered, they cannot soon
yield any great amount of regular revenue, or even of plunder.
The immense territory, nominally or effectively conquered by
France, obliges her to keep on foot two hundred thousand
men, nearly as many as her peace establishment under Louis
the sixteenth. Three hundred thousand other troops absorb
more than all the surplus of her means, after providing for
other essential objects of government. How is she to defray
this enormous charge, so much augmented by revolutionary
confusion and fraud ? The expedients she has resorted to, suffi
ciently prove the extremity of her distress on this account.
She has had paper money ; she has in effect blotted out her
old debt ; she has repeatedly stopped payment of her new debt,
which she pretended to call the sacred price of her liberty ;
she has sold an hundred thousand square miles of confiscated
estates, the property of men whom she forced to run away to
save their lives ; she has seized the Caisse d'Escompte and
the other banks ; she has violently extorted money from the
jews and bankers of Paris ; she has stript the churches of the
Austrian Netherlands, and of Italy ; taxed the Dutch six per
cent, of all their property ; and forced a loan from all her own

FOREIGN POLITICKS. 221

subjects. The conduct of this forced loan shews both her
poverty and her tyranny : her poverty, because it yielded little
of what was expected from it ; and her tyranny, because no
Eastern despot ever adopted more arbitrary means of compul
sion. The sans-culottes, or rabble, and people of small pro
perty, who were violent revolutionists, paid nothing ; while
the rich were arbitrarily, and without any estimation or rule,
assessed at pleasure. The tax was a decree of confiscation,
with such exceptions in its collection, as to make it robbery.
There never was a moment, when the government did not use
all the rigours of tyranny to procure money ; nor one, when
the collection of it supplied any adequate resources : the peo
ple have ever suffered oppression, and the government want.
LET it be well considered, then, how desperate the contest
must be for France, provided the English be able to maintain
it for some years longer. The English are not a stupid peo
ple, nor have they a feeble government : they will discern the
almost certainty of their success, and will persevere to ensure
it. The civilized world, long endangered by France, will then
be again in security.

C 222 ]

HERCULES.

VIRST PUBLISHED IX THE PALLADIUM, OCTOBER, ISOi.
TO PRINTERS.

AT seems as if newspaper wares were made to suit a market,
as much as any other. The starers, and wonderers, and
gapers, engross a very large share of the attention of all
the sons of the type. Extraordinary events multiply upon
us surprisingly. Gazettes, it is seriously to be feared, will
not long allow room to any thing, that is not loathsome or
shocking. A newspaper is pronounced to be very lean and
destitute of matter, if it contains no account of murders, sui
cides, prodigies, or monstrous births.

SOME of these tales excite horrour, and others disgust ; yet
the fashion reigns, like a tyrant, to relish wonders, and almost
to relish nothing else. Is this a reasonable taste ? or is it mon
strous and worthy of ridicule ? Is the history of Newgate the
only one worth reading ? Are oddities only to be hunted ? Pray
tell us, men of ink, if our free presses are to diffuse informa
tion^ and we, the poor ignorant people, can get it no other way
than by newspapers, what knowledge we are to glean from the
blundering lies, or the tiresome truths about thunder storms,
that, strange to tell-! kill oxen or burn barns ; and cats, that
bring two-headed kittens ; and sows, that eat their own pigs ?
The crowing of a hen is supposed to forbode cuckoldom ; and
the ticking of a little bug in the wall threatens yellow fever.
It seems really as if our newspapers were busy to spread super
stition. Omens, and dreams, and prodigies, are recorded, as
if they were worth minding. One would think our gazettes
were intended for Roman readers, who were silly enough to
make account of such things. We ridicule the papists for
their credulity ; yet, if all the trumpery of our papers is be
lieved, we have little right to laugh at any set of people -on
earth ; and if it is not believed, why is it printed ?

HERCULES. 223

SURELY, extraordinary events have not the best title to our
studious attention. To study nature or man, \ve ought to know
things that are in the ordinary course, not the unaccountable
things that happen out of it.

THIS country is said to measure seven hundred millions of
acres, and is inhabited by almost six millions of people. Who
can doubt, then, that a great many crimes will be committed,
and a great many strange things will happen every seven
years ? There will be thunder showers, that will split tough
white oak trees ; and hail storms, that will cost some farmers
the full amount of twenty shillings to mend their glass win
dows ; there will be taverns, and boxing matches, and elec
tions, and gouging, and drinking, and love, and murder, and
running in debt, and running away, and suicide. Now, if u
man supposes eight, or ten, or twenty dozen of these amusing
events will happen in a single year, is he not just as wise as
another man, who reads fifty columns of amazing particulars,
and, of course, knows that they have happened ?

THIS state has almost one hundred thousand dwelling
houses : it-would be strange, if all of them should escape fire
for twelve months. Yet is it very profitable for a man to be
come a deep student of all the accidents, by which they are
consumed ? He should take good care of his chimney corner,
and put a fender before the back-log, before he goes to bed.
Having done this, he may let his aunt or grandmother read by
day, or meditate by night, the terrible newspaper articles of
fires ; how a maid dropped asleep reading a romance, and the
bed-clothes took fire ; how a boy, searching in a garret for a
hoard of nuts, kindled some flax ; and how a mouse, warming
his tail, caught it on fire, and carried it into his hole in the
floor.

SOME of the shocking articles in the papers raise simple?
and very simple, wonder ; some, terrour ; and some, horrour
and disgust. Now what instruction is there in these endless
wonders? Who is the wiser or happier for reading the ac
counts of them ? On the contrary, do they not shock tender
minds, and addle shallow brains ? They make a thousand old

224 HERCULES.

maids, and eight or ten thousand booby boys, afraid to go to
bed alone. Worse than this happens ; for some eccentrick
minds are turned to mischief by such accounts, as they receive,
of troops of incendiaries burning our cities : the spirit of imi
tation is contagious ; and boys are found unaccountably bent to
do as men do. When the man flew from the steeple of the
North church fifty years ago, every unlucky boy thought of
nothing but flying from a signpost.

IT was once a fashion to stab hereticks ; and Ravaillac, who
stabbed Henry the fourth of France, the assassin of the duke
of Guise, and of the duke of Buckingham, with many others,
only followed the fashion. Is it not in the power of newspa
pers to spread fashions ; and by dinning burnings and murders
in every body's ears, to detain all rash and mischievous tem
pers on such subjects, long enough to wear out the first im
pression of horrour, and to prepare them to act what they so
familiarly contemplate ? Yet there seems to be a sort of rival-
ship among printers, who shall have the most wonders, and
the strangest and most horrible crimes. This taste will mul
tiply prodigies. The superstitious Romans used to forbid re
ports of new prodigies, while they were performing sacrifices
on such accounts.

EVERY horrid story in a newspaper produces a shock ; but,
after some time, this shock lessens. At length, such stories
are so far from giving pain, that they rather raise curiosity,
and we desire nothing so much, as the particulars of terrible
tragedies. The wonder is as easy as to stare ; and the most
vacant mind is the most in need of such resources as cost no
trouble of scrutiny or reflection : it is a sort of food for idle
curiosity, that is ready chewed and digested.

ON the whole, we may insist, that the increasing fashion for
printing wonderful tales of crimes and accidents is worse than
ridiculous, as it corrupts both the publick taste and morals. It
multiplies fables, prodigious monsters, and crimes, and thus
makes shocking things familiar ; while it withdraws all popular
attention from familiar truth, because it is not shocking.

HERCULES. 225

Now, Messrs. Printers, I pray the whole honourable craft,
to banish as many murders, and horrid accidents, and mon
strous births and prodigies from their gazettes, as their readers
will permit them ; and, by degrees, to coax them back to con
template life and manners ; to consider common events with
some common sense ; and to study nature, where she can be
known, rather than in those of her ways, where she really is,
or is represented to be, inexplicable.

STRANGE events are facts, and as such should be mentioned,
but with brevity and in a cursory manner. They afford no
ground for popular reasoning or instruction ; and, therefore, the
horrid details, that make each particular hair stiffen and stand
upright in the reader's head, ought not to be given. In short,
they must be mentioned ; but sensible printers and sensible
readers will think that way of mentioning them the best, that
impresses them least on the publick attention, and that hurries
them on the most swiftly to be forgotten.

29

L 226 1

NO REVOLUTIONIST.

First published in the Palladium, November, 1801.

1VJ.ANY persons seem to despair of the commonwealth.
They say, it is evident, a violent jacobin administration is begun.
The address to the popular passions, they argue, is generally
successful ; and always very encouragingly rejected, even when
it is not. While federalists rely on the sense of the* people,
the jacobins appeal to their nonsense with infinite advantage :
they affect to be entirely on the people's side ; and their mis
take, if, by great good luck, it is supposed they err, is ascribed
to a good motive, in a manner and spirit that invites fresh
attempts to deceive. Thus the deceivers of the people tire
out their adversaries ; they tiy again and again ; and an attempt
that is never abandoned, at last will not fail. What then, it is
asked, can be done ? We have an enlightened people, who are
not poor, and, therefore, are interested to keep jacobinism
down, which ever seeks plunder as the end, and confusion as
the means. Yet the best informed of this mighty people are
lazy ; or ambitious, and go over to the cause of confusion ; or
are artfully rendered unpopular, because they will not go over
to it. The sense, and virtue, and property of the nation, there
fore, will not govern it ; but every day shews, that its vice, and
poverty, and ambition will. We have been mistaken. In our
affairs, we have only thought of what was to be hindered, and
provided sufficiently for nothing that was to be done. We
have thought that virtue, with so many bright rewards, had
some solid power ; and that, with ten thousand charms, she
could always command a hundred thousand votes. Alas ! thesr
illusions are as thin as the gloss on other bubbles. Politician
have supposed, that man really is what he should be ; that hi
reason will do all it can, and his passions and prejudice n«

NO REVOLUTIONIST. 227

more than they ought ; whereas his reason is a mere looker-on ;
it is moderation, when it should be zeal ; is often corrupted
to vindicate, where it should condemn ; and is a coward or a
trimmer, that will take hush-money. Popular reason does not
always know how to act right, nor does it always act right,
when it knows. The agents that move politicks, are the popu
lar passions ; and those are ever, from the very nature of things,
under the command of the disturbers of society. While those
who would defend order, and property, and right, the real
friends of law and liberty, have a great deal to say to silence
passion, but nothing to offer that will satisfy it ; nothing that
will convince a sans-culotte that his ignorance, or vice, and lazi
ness, ordain that he should be poor, while a demagogue tells
him it is the funding system that makes him poor, and revo
lution shall make him rich. Few can reason, all can feel ; and
such an argument is gained, as soon as it is proposed. While
then the popular passions are sure to govern, and the reason
of the society is sure to be awed into silence, or to be disre
garded, if it is heard, what hope is there that our course will
not be as headlong, as rapid, and as fatal, as that of every
government by mere popular impulse has ever been ? The
turnpike road of history is white with the tombstones of such
republicks.

ANSWER.— .If our government must fall, as.it may very
deplorably, and soon, and as it certainly must with a violent
jacobin administration, let the monstrous wickedness of work
ing its downfal really be, and appear, if possible, to the whole
people to be chargeable to the jacobins. Let the federalists
cling to it, while it has life in it, and even longer than there
is hope. Let them be auxiliary to its virtues ; let them
contend for its corpse, as for the body of Patroclus ; and let
them reverence its memory. Let them delay, if they cannot
prevent, its fate ; and let them endeavour so to animate, in
struct, and combine the true friends of liberty, that a new repub
lican system may be raised on the foundations of the present
government. Despair not only hastens the evil, but renders any

NO REVOLUTIONIST.

remedy unavailing. Time, that sooths all other sufferings, will
bring no relief to us, if we neglect or throw away the means
in our hands. What are they ? Truth and argument. They are
feeble means, feeble indeed, against prejudice and passion ;
yet they are all we have, and we must try them. They will
be jury masts, if we are shipwrecked.

THE managers of the filan of confusion, are not numerous :
for that reason, they are the better united. They are a desperate
gang, chiefly resident in the city of New-York, in Pennsylvania,
and Virginia. No men on earth more despise democracy ; or
are more overbearing in their dispositions ; or form vaster
plans of personal aggrandizement. Yet, as they have need of
the democrats, who are more numerous, are honester, and
more in credit than the jacobins, they are obliged to make use
of them. They flatter and deceive, and will surely betray them,
as CromweJl and the independents did the presbyteriuns, in
1648, in England.

THEY will abolish credit, by taxing the funds ; they will
abolish justice, by transferring the judiciary to the states, that
is, to Virginia. They will push on the democratick traders
to do violent things, which will surely make them odious ; and
then they will expect, that the resentments of the honest federal
ists will assist the jacobins to supplant the democrats. The
ruling party contains within itself the seeds of discord ; yet,
though the revolutionary spirit, once indulged, naturally leads
to changes, they are sure to be changes for the worse : a more
violent faction will dispossess one that is moderate.

THE question, therefore, seems to be, how far we shall pro
bably travel in the revolutionary road ; and whether there is
any stopping place, any hope of taking breath, as we run.
towards the bottomless pit, into which the revolutionary fury
is prone to descend. France had twenty three millions poor,
and one million rich ; America has twenty three persons at
ease, to one in want. Our rabble is not numerous; and a
reform in our elections ought to exclude those, who have
nothing, or almost nothing, from the control of every thing.

NO REVOLUTIONIST. 2^9

Our assailants are, therefore, weaker, and our means of defence
greater than the first patriots of France possessed ; our good
men, instead of running away, like the French emigrants, and
giving up their estates to confiscation, must stay at home, and
exert their talents and influence to save the country. Events
may happen to baffle the schemes of jacobinism ; and if New-
England should not be sleepy or infatuated, of which there is,
unhappily, great danger, our adversaries will never be able to
push the work of mischief to its consummation.

[ 230 ]
EQUALITY. N°. I.

First published in the Pallarlwm, November, 1801.

TH

ERE are some popular maxims, which are scarcely
credited as true, and yet are cherished as precious, and de
fended as even sacred. Most of the democratick articles of
faith are blended with truth, and seem to be true ; and they so
comfortably sooth the pride and envy of the heart, that it
swells with resentment, when they are contested, and suffers
some spasms of apprehension, even when they are examined.
Mr. Thomas Paine's writings abound with this sort of specious
falsehoods and perverted truths. Of all his doctrines none,
perhaps, has created more agitation and alarm than that, which
proclaims to all men, that they arc free and equal. This
creed is older than its supposed author, and was thread-bare
in America, before Mr. Paine ever saw our shores ; yet it had
the effect, in other parts of the world, of novelty. It was ?iews)
that the French revolution scattered through the world. It
made the spirit of restlessness and innovation universal. Those
who could not be ruled by reason, resolved that they would not
be restrained by power. Those who had been governed by
law, hungered and thirsted to enjoy, or rather to exercise, the
new prerogatives of a democratick majority, which, of right,
could establish, and, for any cause or no cause at all, could
change. They believed that by making their own and other
men's passions sovereign, they should invest man with imme
diate perfectibility, and breathe into their regenerated liberty
an ethereal spirit that would never die. Slaves grew weary
of their chains, and freemen sick of their rights. The true
liberty had no charms, but such as the philosophists affirmed
had been already rifled. The lazaroni of Naples, fifty thou
sand houseless, naked wretches, heard of their rights and con
sidered their wants as so many wrongs. The soldiers of
Prussia were ready for town-meetings. Even in Constantino
ple, it seemed as if the new doctrine would overpower the

EQUALITY. 231

sedative action of opium, and stimulate the drowsy Turks to a
Parisian frenzy. It is not strange, that slaves should sigh for
liberty, as for some unknown good. But England uinl the
United States of America, while in the full fruition of it, were
almost tempted to renounce its possession for its promise.
Societies were formed in both countries, which considered and
represented their patriotism as the remnant of their preju
dices ; and the old defences of their liberty as the fortresses of
an enemy, the means and the badges of their slavish subjec
tion.

ALL men being free and equal, rulers become our servants,
from whom we claim obligation, though we do not admit their
right to exact any. This generation, being equal to the last,
owes no obedience to its institutions ; and, being wiser, owes
them not even deference. It would be treachery to man, so
long obstructed and delayed in his progress towards perfecti
bility, to forbear to exercise his rights. What if the existing
governments should resist this new claim of the people, yet
the people to be free, have only to will it ! What if this age
should bleed, the next, or the twentieth after this, will be dis
encumbered from the rubbish of the gothick building that we
have subverted ; and may lay the foundations of liberty as deep,
and raise the pillars of its temple as high, as those who think
correctly of its perpetuity and grandeur can desire.

WITH opinions so wild, and passions so fierce, the spirit of
democracy has been sublimated to extravagance. There was
nothing in the danger that affected other men's persons or
rights that could intimidate, nothing in their sufferings that
could melt them. They longed to see kings, and priests, and
nobles « xpiving in tortures. This humane sentiment Barlow
has e. .pressed in verse. The massacres of Paris, the siege of
Lyous, the dro wirings of Nantz, the murders in the name of
justice, that made hosts of assassins wreary of their work, were
so many evils necessary to bring about good, or only so many
acts of just retaliation of the oppressed upon their oppressors.
Th» " enlightened" philosophists surveyed the agitations of
the world, as if they did not live in it ; as if they occupied, as

232 EQUALITY.

mere spectators, a safe position in some star, and beheld revo
lutions sometimes brightening the disk of this planet with
their fires, and at others dimming it with their vapours. They
could contemplate, unmoved, the whirlwind, lifting the hills
from their base, and mixing their ruins with the clouds. They
could see the foundations of society gaping in fissures, as when
an earthquake struggles from the centre. A true philosopher
is superiour to humanity : he could walk at ease over this
earth, if it were unpeopled ; he could tread, with all the plea
sure of curiosity, on its cinders, the day after the final confla
gration.

EQUALITY, they insist, will indemnify mankind for all these
apprehensions and sufferings. As some ages of war and anar
chy may pass away, before the evils incident to the struggles
of a revolution are exhausted, this generation might be allow
ed to have some cause to object to innovations, that are c<?r-
tainly to make them wretched, although, fiossibly, the grand
children of their grandchildren may be the better for their
sufferings. This slender hope, however, is all that the illu-
minists have proposed, as the indemnity for all the crimes and
misery of France, and all the horrours of the new revolutions,
that they wish to engender in Europe, from the Bosphorus to
the Baltick. jWhat is meant by this boastful equality ? and
what is its value ?

EQUALITY. N°. II.

THE philosophers among the democrats will no doubt in
sist, that they do not mean to equalise property, they contend
only for ^an equality of rights. If they restrict the word equality
as carefully as they ought, it will not import, that all men have
an equal right to all things, but, that to whatever they have a
right, it is as much to be protected and provided for, as the
right of any persons in society. In this sense, nobody Vill
contest their claim. Yet, though the right of a poor man is

EQUALITY. 233

as much his right, as a rich man's, there is no great novelty
or wisdom in the discovery of the principle, nor are the
French entitled to any pre-eminence on this account. The
magna charta of England, obtained, I think, in the year 1216,
contains the great body of what is called, and our revolution
ists of 1776 called it, English liberty. This they claimed as
their birth-right, and with good reason ^ for it enacts, that
justice shall not be sold, nor denied, nor delayed ; and, as,
soon afterwards, the trial by jury grew into general use,
the subjects themselves are employed by the government to
apply remedies, when rights are violated. For true equality
and the rights of man, there never was a better or a wiser
provision, as, in fact, it executes itself. This is the precious
system of true equality, imported by our excellent and ever
to be venerated forefathers, which they prized as their birth
right. Yet this glorious distinction of liberty, so ample, so
stable, and so temperate, secured by the common law, has
been reviled and exhibited to popular abhorrence, as the
shameful badge of our yet colonial dependence on England.
As the common law secures equally all the rights of the
citizens, and as the jacobin leaders loudly decry this system,
it is obvious, that they extend their views still farther. Un
doubtedly, they include in their plan of equality, that the ci
tizens shall have assigned to them new rights, and different
from what they now enjoy. You have earned your estate,
or it descended to you from your father ; of course, my
right to your estate is not as good as yours. Am I then to
have, in the new order of things, an equal right with you ?
Certainly not, every democrat of any understanding will re
ply. What then do you propose by your equality ? You.
have earned an estate ; I have not ; yet I have a right, and
as good a right as another man, to earn it. I may save my
earnings, and deny myself the pleasures and comforts of life,
till I have laid up a competent sum to provide for my infir
mity and old age. All cannot be rich, but all have a right
to make the attempt ; and when some have fully succeeded,
30

234 EQUALITY.

and others partially, and others not at all, the several states,
in which they then find themselves, become their condition
in life ; and whatever the rights of that condition may be,
they are to be faithfully secured by the laws and govern
ment. This, however, is not the idea of the men of the new
order of things^ for, thus far, the plan belongs to a very old
order of things. '

THEY consider a republican government as the only one,
in which this sort of equality can exist at all. A tyrant, or
a king, which all democrats suppose to be words of like im
port, might leave the rights of his subjects unviolated. The
grand seignior is arbitrary ; the heavy hand of his despot
ism however falls only on the great men in office, the aristo
crats, whom it must be a pleasure to the admirers of equality
to see strangled by the bow-string ; the great body of the
subjects of the Turkish government lead a very undisturbed
life, enjoying a stupid security from the oppressions of pow
er. To enjoy rights, without having proper security for
their enjoyment, ought not indeed to satisfy any political
reasoners, and this is precisely the difficulty of the demo-
cratick sect. All the rights and equality they admire are
destitute of any rational security, and are of a nature utterly
subversive of all true liberty. For,. on close examination, it
turns out, that their notion of equality is, that all the citizens
of a republick have an equal right to political power. This is
called republicanism. This hastens the journey of a dema
gogue to power, and invests him with the title of the man of
the people. This, the people are told, is their great cause,
in opposition to the coalesced tyrants of Europe, and the in
triguing federal aristocrats in America.

LET me cut out the tongue of that blasphemer, every de-
mocratick zealot will exclaim, who dares to deny the right
ful and unlimited power of the people. It is indeed a very
inveterate evil of our politicks, that popular opinion has been
formed rather to democracy, than to sober republicanism.
The American revolution was, in fact, after 1776, a resistance

EQUALITY. 235

to foreign government. We claimed the right to govern our
selves, and our patriots never contemplated the claim of the
imported united Irish, that a mob should govern us. It is true,
that the checks on the power of the people themselves were
not deemed so necessary, as on the temporary rulers whom
we elected : we looked for danger on the same side, where
we had been used to look, and suspected every thing but our
selves. Our dread of rulers devoted them to imbecility ;
our presumptuous confidence in ourselves puffed all the
weak, and credulous, and vain, with an opinion, that no
power was safe but their own, and, therefore, that should be
uncontrollable and have no limits. This is democracy, and
not republicanism. The French revolution has been made
the instrument of faction ; it has multiplied popular errours,
and rendered them indocile. Restraints on the power of the
people, seem to all democrats, foolish, for how shall they
restrain themselves ? and mischievous, because- as they
think, the power of the people is their liberty. Restraints,
that make it less, and, on every inviting occasion for mis
chief and the oppression of a minority, make it nothing,
will appear to be the abandonment of its principles and
cause.

EQUALITY. N°. III.

ALL democrats maintain, that the people have an inherent,
unalienable right to power : there is nothing so fixed, that
they may not change it ; nothing so sacred, that their voice,
which is the voice of God, would not unsanctify and consign
to destruction : it is not only true, that no king, or parliament,
or generation past can bind the people ; but they cannot
even bind themselves : the will of the majority is not only
law, but right : having an unlimited right to act as they please,
whatever they please to act is a rule. Thus, virtue itself,

236 EQUALITY.

thus, publick faith, thus, common honesty, are no more
than arbitrary rules, which the people have, as yet, abstained
from rescinding ; and when a confiscating or paper money
majority in congress should ordain otherwise, they would be
no longer rules. Hence, the worshippers of this idol ascribe
to it attributes inconsistent with all our ideas of the Supreme
Being himself, to whom we deem it equally impious and
absurd to impute injustice. Hence, they argue, that a publick
debt is a burden to be thrown off, whenever the people grow
weary of it ; and hence, they, somewhat inconsistently,
pretend, that the very people cannot make a constitution,
authorizing any restraint upon malicious lying against the
government. So that, according to them, neither religion,
nor morals, nor policy, nor the people themselves can erect
any barrier against the reasonable or the capricious exercise
of their power. Yet, what these cannot do, the spirit of sedi
tion can ; this is more sacred than religion or justice, and
dearer than the general good itself. For it is evident, that,
if we will have the unrestricted liberty of lying against our
magistrates, and laws, and government, we can have no other
liberty ; and the clamorous jacobins have decided, that such
liberty, without any other, is better than every other kind of
liberty without it.

Is it true, however, (if it be not rebellion to inquire) that
this uncontrolled power of the people is their right, and that
it is absolutely essential to their liberty ? All our individual
rights are to be exercisecl with due regard to the rights of
others ; they are tied fast by restrictions, and are to be exer
cisecl within certain reasonable limits. How is it, then, that
the democrats find a right in the whole people so much
more extensive, than what belongs to any one of their num
ber ? In other cases, the extremes of any principle are so
many departures from principle. Why is it, then, that they
make popular right to consist wholly in extremes, and thai
so absolutely? that, without such boundless pretensions, they
say it could not subsist at all ? Checks on the people them
selves are not merely clogs, but chains. They are usurjia-

EQUALITY. 23r

tions, which should be abolished, even if in practice they
prove useful ; for, they will tell you, precedent sanctions
and introduces tyranny. Neither Commodus nor Caligula
were ever so flattered with regard to the extent of their
power, and the impiety of setting bounds to it, as any people
who listen to demagogues.

THE writings of Thomas Paine, and the democratick news
papers will evince, that this representation of their doctrine
is not caricatured : it is not more extravagant than they
represent it themselves. They often, indeed, affirm, that
they are not admirers of a mere democracy : they know it
will prove licentious : they are in favour of an energetick
government.

IT is both more satisfactory and more safe, to trust to the
conduct of a party, than their professions. What says the
conduct of the party ? Either the power of the people in
the United States is absolutely uncontrolled, or the executive
authority, the senate, and the courts of law, are the branches
constituted to check it. Now, is it not notorious, that one
great complaint of the jacobins against the federalists is, that
the latter are friendly to the executive department. They
are, on the contrary, the friends of the people, and on all
occasions bold and eager to enlarge their privileges and influ
ence in the government. It is not amiss to notice, though
it is somewhat of a digression, that, of late, the jacobins vin
dicate, in their own president, an extent of executive power
and patronage, such as neither Washington, nor Adams,
nor their friends, ever thought of claiming, or exercising.
They say it is right, that the president should displace
all federalists, and thus all officers become his creatures
and dependents. Thus, a standing army of corruption is
to be formed, to be drawn out in array on every election.
When the British treaty was depending, these men contend
ed, that no treaty was binding, after being ratified by the
president and senate, until the immediate representatives
of the people had approved it. This was Mr. Gallatm's
disorganizing and unconstitutional doctrine. Yet every cle-

-238 EQUALITY.

mocrat extols Mr. Jefferson for delivering up the Berceau,
and carrying the French treaty into full effect, before con
gress has even met to consider it. Even this house of repre
sentatives, that was thus to be supreme over the supreme
treaty-making power, was nevertheless to be subject to a
power superiour to itself. The people of any district could
instruct their members, and such instructions bind him
against the plain dictates of his honour and conscience : he
must be a rebel to the people, if he will not be perjured.

BESIDES, the remonstrances of any description of citizens
are so many expressions of the will of the sovereign, and
being his willy ought to become law. Thus congress is to
be, in all its branches, somewhat less than a mother jacobin
club, which has ever been allowed to prescribe rules of con
duct to its affiliated clubs. The senate is as little spared in
this plan of apportionment of power by the democrats : they
uniformly denominate this body the dark divan, the conclave,
the aristocratick branch of the government. The famous
Virginia amendments, proposed, when democracy was in its
zenith, to render this branch null, and to make it less a
barrier against licentiousness than its convenient instrument.
Let every thinking man read those amendments with atten
tion, and he will see, that to reform our government was not
the object, but to subvert it.

IN point of theory, notions somewhat more correct have
prevailed in regard to the judiciary. Yet, even on this point,
at this moment, the democratick gazettes assure us, that
their majority will abolish the new judiciary by repealing
the law. Thus, the judges are to hold their offices during
good behaviour : they cannot be removed at pleasure ; but,
as they stand upon the law, that very foundation, the demo
crats tell us, can be torn up. So that one great barrier of
the constitution, erected to answer the ends of justice and
publick safety, when either government or the people them
selves " feel power and forget right," may be subverted
Indirectly^ though not directly : the democrats cannot get

EQUALITY. 239

ever if ; but they say they will get round it. Instead of stop
ping the flood of democratick licentiousness, this dam is to
be the first obstacle that is swept away.

LET the considerate friends of rational liberty decide then
from facts, from the most authentickand solemn transactions
of the democratick party, whether there be any check, limi
tation, or control, that they would impose on the people ; or
any now existing, that they would not first weaken and then
abolish. If the sober citizens really wish for a simple demo
cracy, and that the power of the people shall be arbitrary
and uncontrollable, then let them weigh the consequences
well, before they consent to the tremendous changes that
the federal government must undergo, before it will be fit
for a democracy. Let them consider the sacrifices of liberty,
as well as order, of blood, as well as treasure, that this sort
of government never fails to exact ; and if, on due reflection,
they choose these consequences, then let them elect, and let
them follow in arms, the men who are so much infatuated
to bring them about ; for " infuriated man will seek his long-
" lost liberty through desolation and carnage." If, however,
they prefer the constitution, as it was made, and as it has
been honestly administered, they will cling to the old cause
and the old friends of federal republicanism, which they have
tried in trying times, and, of course, know how to value and
to trust.

EQUALITY. N°. IV.

THERE is perhaps no country in the world, where vision
ary theory has done so much to darken political knowledge,
as in France, nor where facts appear at length so conspi
cuously to enlighten it. The doctrines of equality, and
the rights of man, and the uncontrolled power of the people,
whose voice is, rather unintelligibly, said to be the voice of
God, have been so prevalent, that most persons have allowed
the French to be political discoverers j and that they were,

240 EQUALITY.

certainly, not God's, but some other being's, chosen people,
selected to preserve the true faith in poliiicks from corrup
tion and oblivion. These lofty claims French modesty urged
in every country, as if they were Romans, and the others,
barbarians. Our jiatriotick sophists very meekly admitted
their claim.

TIME is as little a friend to folly, as to hypocrisy. It
obliges the intemperate sometimes to be sober, and makes
knavery tired of its mask. The French revolutipnary gov
ernment is now in its teens, and we are compelled, with
some steadiness of attention, to behold those features, which
democratick fondness shut its eyes to imagine were divine
in its cradle. Never was popular admiration more extrava
gant ; never were its disappointments more signal or com
plete. The French revolution is one of those dire events,
that cannot happen without danger, nor end without advantage
to mankind. It is a rare inundation, whose ravages shew the
utmost high-water mark : an earthquake, that has laid bare
a mine : a comet, whose track through the sky, while it scat
ters pestilence, excites the curiosity of astronomers, and
rewards it.

WHEN the French revolution began, many of the best, and
even some few of the wisest, rejoiced in some of the most
pernicious, and most absurd of its measures. Down with the
nobles, was the cry of the Tiers Etat, or third estate, and it was
echoed here : let all the three orders vote in one chamber, in
other words, let there be but one order, the democratick :
that will rule and the others bleed. 'Down with the priest
hood, was the next cry : abuses so great have been tolerated
too long : we reform too late, and therefore we cannot re
form too much. The many millions of church property
were, of course, by a simple vote of a majority, re-annexed,
as they called robbery, to the nation. The nobles were next
dismounted in an evening's sitting, and in a fit of emulation
in extravagance. All was done without reasoning and by
acclamation. The sovereign mob of the suburbs of Paris.

EQUALITY. 241

called St. Antoine and Rue Marcel, were next employed. The
bastile was taken ; liberty celebrated her triumphs, she trod
upon a plain, on the rubbish of her tyrants* palaces, whose
ruins were not left as high as their foundations. Her path
seemed to be smooth ; all obstacles were removed ; all men
were free and equal ; those who had rescued liberty by their
blood were ready to shed it in her defence. Where are her
friends ? Behold them arrayed in armies, brandishing their
pikes. Where are her enemies? See their heads dropping
gore on those pikes. Is not the danger over ? Is not the vic
tory won ? Are not the French free, and perfectly secure in
their freedom ?

EVERY sagacious democrat answered all these questions in
the affirmative.

NOBODY seemed any longer to have power, but the people.
They had all power, and, of course, unbounded liberty. How
little is it considered, that arbitrary power, no matter whether
of prince or people, makes tyranny ; and that in salutary re
straint is liberty. A stupid, ferocious multitude, who are unfit
to be free, may play the tyrant for a day, just long enough to
put a sceptre of iron into their leader's hand. To use quaint
language, in order to be the more intelligible, it may be said,
that, when there is no end to the power of a multitude, there
can be no beginning to their liberty.

REVIEW the transactions in France since 1789, and it will
appear, that there is no condition of a state, in which it is
more impossible that liberty should subsist, or more nearly
impossible that, after being lost, it should be retrieved, than
after order has been overthrown, and popular licentiousness
triumphs in its stead.

THE old government of France was a bad one ; but the new
order of things was infinitely worse. Most persons suppose
this is to be ascribed to the excess of liberty ; they think there
was too much of a good thing. Now the truth is, there was
no liberty at all — absolutely none from the first, no reasonable
hope, scarcely a lucky chance for it. Who had liberty ? Clearly
not the king, the nobles, nor the priests, nor the king's minis-

242 EQUALITY.

ters; all these were in jeopardy from the 14th July, 1789.
not the rich ; they were robbed and driven into banishment :
not the great military officers who had gained glory in the
American war ; they were slain : not the farmers ; their harvests
and their sons were in requisition : not the merchants ; they
were so stripped, that their race was extinct ; they were known
only on the grave-stones of Nantz and Lyons ; they were re
membered in France, like the mammoth, by their bones. But,
say the democrats, the people, the many, in other words, the
rabble of the cities, were free : bread was issued to them by
the publick. Yes, but it was the bread of soldiers, for which
they were enrolled as national guards to uphold the tyranny of
robbers and usurpers ; and as soon as this very rabble relucted
at their work, the more desperate cut-throats from Marseilles
were called for, to shoot them in the streets.

IT is often said, that the monarchy of France was forcibly
upheld by the army. There is much incorrectness in the
prevailing notions on this point. Without pausing to consider
them, it may be sufficient to say, that the leaders of the revo
lution, apprehending that they should have an army against
them, very early determined that they would have also an
army on their side. By a simple vote, raising the pay of the
king's soldiers, they detached the troops from his side to their
own ; and, still further to augment their military force, they
enlisted the rabble of all the cities as national guards. Thus
France was still governed by an army, but this army was itself
governed by new chiefs. The people were more than ever
subject to military power.

Now it would be a pleasant task for the democratick de-
claimers to shew, that martial law is liberty ; and as there never
was a half hour since July, 1789, when a man in France had
any other rights, but such as that law saw fit to spare, they
ought now to tell us, as they gave no reason at the time, why
they roasted oxen on account of the triumphs of French liberty.

THE nature of that precious liberty deserves some further
consideration.

EQUALITY. 243

EQUALITY. NO. V.

THE French are very unjustly accused of having lost their
liberty : they never had it. The old government was not u
free one, and the violence that demolished it was not liberty.
The leaders were, from the first, as much the sovereigns as
the Bourbon kings. A mob would disperse in an hour with
out a leader, and that leader has immediately an authority, of
all despots the most absolute, though the most precarious. To
destroy the monarchy, the resort was to force, not to the peo
ple ; and who, in those times of violence, had any liberty, but
the possessors of that force ? No liberty was then thought
more valuable, than that of running away from mob tyranny.

ACCORDINGLY, the standing army, which had been only
two hundred thousand strong, was suddenly increased to half a
million. The ruin of trade and manufactories compelled
scores of thousands to become soldiers for bread. All France
was soon filled with terrour, pillage, and massacre. It is ab
surd, though for a time it was the fashion, to call that nation
free, which was, at that very period of its supposed emancipa
tion, subject to martial law, and bleeding under its lash. The
rights of a Frenchman were never less, nor was there ever a
time when he so little dared to resist or even to complain.

THE kings of France, it is true, had a great military force,
but the new liberty-leaders had as much again. They used it,
avowedly, to strike terrour into those they were pleased to call
counter-revolutionists ; in other words, to drive into exile
nearly a million nobles, priests, rich people, and women : eve
ry description of persons, whom they hated, feared or wished
to plunder, was placed on the proscribed list. All the kings
of France, from the days of Pharamond and Clovis, down to
the last of the Bourbon race, did not exercise despotick power
on so great a scale, nor with such horrid cruelty. If the
French were slaves under their kings, their masters did not
tiy to aggravate the weight of their chains : the people were
sometimes spared because they were a property ; because

244 EQUALITY.

their kings had an interest in their lives, and some in their
affections, but none in their sufferings. The republican French
have not whispered their griefs, without hazard of a spy ; they
have not lingered in their servile tasks, without bleeding un
der the whips of their usurpers.

YET this extremity of degradation and wretchedness, has
been celebrated as a triumph. Americans have been made
discontented with their liberty, because it was so much less an
object of desire, a condition so inferiour in distinction to that
of the French.

WHILE the kings reigned, they permitted the laws to gov
ern, at least, as much as their quiet and security would allow :
and when they used military force to seize the members of
the parliament of Paris, and to detain them prisoners for their
opposition to their edicts, the ferment in the nation soon in
duced them to set them at liberty. Thus, it appears, that the
rigours of despotism once had something existing to counter
act and to soften them ; but since the revolution, the popular
passions have been invariably excited and employed to furnish
arms to tyrants, and never to snatch them out of their hands ;
to overtake fugitive wretches, and to invent new torments.

THIS, bad as it is, is the natural course of things. Liberty
is not to be enjoyed, indeed it cannot exist, without the habits
of just subordination : it consists, not so much in removing all
restraint from the orderly, as in imposing it on the violent.
Now the first step in a revolution, is to make these restraints
appecy* unjust and debasing, and to induce the multitude to
throw them off; in other words, to give daggers to ruffians,
and to lay bare honest men's hearts. By exalting their pas
sions to rage and frenzy, and leading them on, before they
cool, to take bastiies, and overturn altars, and thrones, a mad
populace are well fitted for an army, but they are spoiled for a
republick. Having enemies to contend with, and leaders to
fight for, the contest is managed by force, and the victory
brings joy only as it secures booty and vengeance. The con
quering faction soon divides, and one part arrays its partizans
in arms against the other ; or, more frequently, by treachery

EQUALITY. 245

and surprise cuts off the chiefs of the adverse faction, and
they reduce it to weakness and slavery. Then more booty,
more blood, and new triumphs for liberty ! !

IT is not because there are not malecontents, it is not be
cause tyranny has not rendered scores of thousands desperate,
that civil war has not, without ceasing, ravaged that country,
But the despotism, that continually multiplies wretches, care
fully disarms them : it so completely engrosses all power to
itself, as to discourage alF resistance. Indeed, the only power
in the state is that of the sword ; and while the army obeys
the general, the nation must obey the army. Hence it has
been, that civil war has not raged. The people were nothing,
and, of course, no party among them could prepare the force
to resist the tyrants in Paris. Hence France has appeared to
be tranquil in its slavery, and has been forced to celebrate
feasts for the liberty it had not. They have often changed
their tyrants, but never their tyranny, not even in the mode
and instruments of its operation. An armed force has been
the only mode from the first, which free governments may
render harmless, because they may keep it subordinate to the
civil power : this despotick states cannot do.

THE mock "republican" leaders, as they affect to call
themselves, but the jacobin chiefs in America, as they are
known and called, are the close imitators of these French ex
amples. They use the same popular cant, and address them
selves to the same classes of violent and vicious rabble. Our
Condorcets and Rolands are already in credit and in power. It
would not be difficult to shew, that their notions of liberty are
not much better than those of the French. If Americans
adopt them, and attempt to administer our orderly and right
ful government by the agency of the popular passions, we
shall lose our liberty at first, and in the very act of making
the attempt ; next we shall see our tyrants invade every pos
session that could tempt their cupidity, and violate every right
that could obstruct their rage.

NOTHING will better counteract such designs than to con
template the effects of their success in the government of
Buonaparte. Of that in the next number.

246 EQUALITY.

EQUALITY. N°. VI.

THE NATURE AND BASIS OF BUONAPARTE'S POWER.

EVERY democrat more or less firmly believes, that a revo
lution is the sure path to liberty ; and, therefore, he believes
government of little importance to the people, and very often
the greatest impediment to their rights. Merely because the
French had begun a revolution, and thrown every thing that
was government, flat to the ground, they began to rejoice,
because that nation had, thus-) become the freest nation in the
world. It is very probable many of the ignorant in France
really thought so ; it is lamentable, that many of the well inform
ed in America fell into a like errour.

IT is essential, therefore, to review the history of that revo
lution, at least with so much attention, as to deduce a few
plain conclusions. Popular discontents naturally lead to a for
cible resistance of government. The very moment the physical
power of the people is thus employed to resist, the people
themselves become nothing. They can only destroy ; they
cannot rule. They cannot act without chiefs ; nor have chiefs,
and keep rights. They are blind instruments in the hands of am
bitious men ; and, of necessity, act merely as they are acted upon.
Each individual is nothing ; but the chief, having the power
of a great many to aid him, can overpower, and will destroy,
any mutinous citizen, who presumes to find fault with his
general's conduct. Thus a revolution produces a mob. A
mob is at first an irregular, then a regular army, but in every
stage of its progress, the mere blind instrument of its leaders.
The power of an army, of necessity, falls into the hands of one
man, the general in chief, who is the sole despot and master
of the state.

EVERY thing in France has gone on directly contrary to all
the silly expectations of the democrats, though most exactly
in conformity with the laws of man's nature, and the evidence
of history. If this kind of contemplation could cure Ameri
cans of their strange, and, perhaps it will prove <)fatal<> propen-

EQUALITY. 247

sity to revolutionary principles, and induce them, in future, to
prefer characters fitter to preserve order than to overthrow it,
then we should grow wise by the direful experience of others.
We might stop with our Rolands, without proceeding to our
Dan tons and Robespieres.

AFTER many convulsions, we behold Buonaparte the undis
puted master of France, of new France^ whose vast extent,
whose immense populousness, whose warlike spirit, and arro
gance in victory, invest her with the means, as well as the
claim, like old Rome, to parcel out kingdoms, and to sit in
judgment upon nations. A nine years war has left those
nations enfeebled. They are too much afraid of France to
resist her singly ; and, unhappily for the repose and security
of mankind, too much afraid of each other to join in self-
defence.

A POSITION of things so tempting to ambition would awaken
it in France, even if it ever slept there. But it never sleeps.
Great Britain, though not weakened, is wearied and discourag
ed by the selfishness and discord of the continental powers,
and will not resume her arms, unless compelled by absolute
necessity.

RUSSIA alone is not afraid of France ; but Russia has views
on Turkey, which she will not, by any hostile measures, rouse
France to obstruct.

IN reality, the European states are, by a singular concurrence
of circumstances, more than ever exposed, at this moment, as
a prey to the French ; and even more exposed to their arts in
peace, than to their arms in war. There is little doubt that
the power of the French consul would prove irresistible ; but
the important doubt exists, is it stable ?

BUONAPARTE reigns by military power. There is not, as
formerly, a body of nobles, an order of priests, a jealous parlia
ment of Paris, a system of wise municipal laws, that deserved
respect, and of provincial customs and claims of separate
sovereignty, that extorted it from their kings. The new
monarchy is without any such checks! There is no exterior
impediment to the power of an army : its obstacles are to be

248 EQUALITY.

sought for within itself. And simple as its machinery seems
to be, military force requires the management of a skilful
hand, and it is kept in order, by rightly touching many little
wheels and springs.

IT is indeed true, that discipline is the ruling principle of
armies ; but what is discipline more than the fear of the
general ? While they know they have every thing to suffer
from disobedience, and nothing to hope, the troops will obey.
If, however, a state of things should exist, that admitted of
much to hope from mutiny, and little to dread, there is nothing
in the principle of discipline to restrain the soldiers from
revolt any more than citizens.

SUPPOSE, for instance, the great lieutenant-generals, especi
ally if they command separate armies, distant from the general,
should conspire to place a new commander at their head ; in
that case, it is evident, the power of discipline would be turn
ed against the general, and converted into an instrument of
insurrection. Every body knows, that the troops would greatly
incline to the side of their particular commander. As the
thirst for rank is the very soul of an army, the great officers
will be hindered from aspiring at the chief command only by
the difficulty, and almost impossibility, of attaining it — for as
to the danger, men of daring spirits, habituated to think life
worth little, and honour worth every thing, will not 'make
much account of the danger.

To guard against this mischief, inherent in the very life,
and bone, and muscle of his power, Buonaparte must watch
his great officers much, and trust them as little as possible.
He must guard most vigilantly every avenue, by which a rival
might enter his army to tamper with it : he must be jealous
of every great military genius in his camp, and ready to meet
every unforeseen event : he will prevent their being collected
in great force in the distant provinces, and under popular
lieutenant-generals : he will not let the honour of victories fall
to the share of any commander but himself ; and, for that reason,
he will hurry to Marengo, that every body may be forced to
ascribe the event to his superiour talents and fortune. While

EQUALITY. 249

he keeps the troops in dread of punishment, if they disobey,
and the odium of such punishments he will throw on his lieu
tenant-generals, he will spare nothing, that taxes or that exac
tions without any formality can obtain, to bestow in largesses on
his soldiers. Thus, he will, be the dispenser of all bounties, and
unite in his favour the sentiments of both fear and affection.
Nobody will be able to do others so much evil, nor, before a
nation's wealth is at his disposal, can any rival appear to be so
willing to do them good, as he.

IT is obvious, however, that this is a system both of jealousy
and rigour. It is equally clear, that, to reward the soldiers,
will be the chief thing ; to spare the people a very subordi
nate consideration.

IT will, indeed, for other reasons, be nearly impossible,
under such a government, greatly to favour the people. The
military class, holding the chief power, will claim the first
place, in point of rank and honour. Soldiers would grow weary
of their condition, if they were despised by the citizens, whom
they are employed to keep in subjection. Besides, it would
not be practicable, nor, perhaps, would it be good policy in the
general, to allow the state of a citizen to be greatly preferable
to that of a soldier.

IT follows, also, that the inferiour kind of liberty, which
many arbitrary governments venture to let their subjects enjoy,
and which, prior to this revolution, all the European stutes
seemed desirous to enlarge, will be denied to the French. For
if they pretend to be free, they would soon corrupt the soldiery
with their doctrines of equality. Hence, it is, that the liberty
of the press bus been tried in France, and really found to be
inconsistent with their plan of government. We call it their
tyranny, to abridge it ; the fact is, self-preservation is the
first law of every government ; and the liberty to make Buo
naparte odious, and to combine all his enemies into a regular
body against him, would soon oblige him to draw the sword in
self-defence. The liberty of the press, under a military govern
ment, is, indeed, only the liberty to kindle a civil war.
32

250 EQUALITY.

FOR the same reason, martial law must be universal : the
government will defend itself; and it cannot defend itself,
unless it every where watches its enemies, and hinders them
from acting as soon as they begin to stir. Free governments
may consider many libels and lies as idle words ; many others
as worthy only of moderate fines ; but there is no safety in per
mitting your town-meeting orators to tamper with an army.
The government must be jealous, and is scarcely permitted to
be either magnanimous or merciful : its fears will make it
always strict, and often cruel.

IT is not possible, therefore, that the French should enjoy
one half of the little liberty they had under their kings. Their
revolution will lessen it throughout Europe. But it is certain,
that the most rigorous governments are the hardest to main
tain in tranquillity. Trivial risings of the people are not to
be expected : the certainty, that any small insurgent force
would be instantly crushed by the great force of the army,
will prevent any risings, but such as are serious struggles for
empire, and these are to be expected.

A GREAT commander, with a hundred thousand men to se
cond his designs, is crowned with success. The decision is made
by the comparison of hostile forces, and the conqueror, having
the greater force, claims the admiration of his countrymen and
despotick authority over them. He obtains it. But in peace
he has fewer to aid his designs, and more to obstruct them.
Those whom he gratifies will not be grateful; those whom he
denies will be vindictive. Extravagant hopes are formed, and
even great success in a peaceful administration will not be
splendid. Few will admire ; many will repine and be disap
pointed.

THE circumstance, that his claim to reign is merely per
sonal, will ensure disturbances. Tranquillity will not be expect
ed to last longer than his life, and that expectation will abridge
it. His indisposition, his old age, his mistakes, and his disas
ters, will all engender those forebodings of change, that will
hasten changes. His ambitious lieutenants will aspire to his
place, and will cabal in the army to gain a party to be ready

EQUALITY. 251

to salute them emperours, as soon as he is dead, or has be
come odious.

ANOTHER consequence worth remark, is, that these changes
have no tendency to establish liberty. A new struggle, like
the old one, must be by violence, which can only give the
sceptre to the most violent. The leaders will aim only at the
power to reign, and it will not be their wish to lessen that
power, which they hope to gain as a prize. The supreme
power would not tempt them to such efforts, if it was to be
made cheap and vile in their eyes, by bestowing it on the des
pised rabble of the cities and the common soldiery. These
men are unfit for liberty ; and, if they had it gained for them,
would give it away to a demagogue, who would have, in six
weeks, another army, and a new despotism, as hard to bear
and to overturn as that which they had subverted. Nor could
the leaders establish liberty if they tried : the supreme power
being military, the contest can only determine what general
shall hold it. A military government, in fact, though often
changing its chief, is capable of very long duration. Rome,
Turkey, and Algiers, are examples : France may prove another.

THUS the progress of mob equality is invariably to despot
ism, and to a military despotism, which, by often changing its
head, embitters every one of the million of its curses, but
which cannot change its nature. It renders liberty hopeless*
and almost undesirable to its victims.

[ 252 ]

HISTORY IS PHILOSOPHY TEACHING BY EXAMPLE."

First piMuhedtn the Palladium, Febmai-y, 1802.

MONO states and nations the law of the powerful is des-
povi.-.m. Yet there are, perhaps, of more than two hundred
thousand heads of families in New-England, ten or twenty
thousand, who sincerely believe, that the power of France is
favourable to general liberty The opinion is shallow, but a
great many hundreds of the persons who entertain it are no
fools. The erroin*, gross as it is, lies in want of thought, and
want of information.

A NATION, which has made almost every sacrifice for its
ambition to rule other nations, will not, now it is victorious, be
very modest in requiring from them like sacrifices. France
affects to be the imitator of ancient Rome : never was there
a more abominable original, or a more servile copy.

T HERE vvtcs Almost no evil that Rome did not inflict, scarcely
any humiliation that she did not impose on her allies. The
people of Latium were denominated her conft derates, and en
titled to what was called, as a kind of eminence in slavery, the
juts Latinum ; the other states claimed only the jus Italicum.
These were degrees in slavery. For when the Latins insisted,
as well they might, tiiat they would not follow the Romans in
their wars, their refusal was called treason ; a war ensued, and
the Latins yielded on the terms of having the excellent pri
vilege of the jus Latinum. After Latium was thus humbled,
Rome extended her sway over the twelve states of Etruria.
Those nearest to her, and the most afraid of her power, were
tempted by all the offers of citizenship that tyranny could hold
forth ; and they were offered with effect : they were neutral.
Etruria did not combine to resist Rome, till Rome was not to
be resisted. Sammum was next attacked. Seventy years of
war, and more than twenty triumphs, were necessary to sub
due the Samnites, who were as brave arid as warlike as the Ro
mans, but not half so well united. The Romans never failed

HTSTORY TS PHILOSOPHY. 253

to use one set of slaves to conquer another. The^ Campanians
were called allies, and, under that name, entitled to fight the
Samnites; and, during a century of the most vigorous oppres
sion, they were incessantly reproached with their ingratitude
to the Romans, because they winced a little, when their chains
galled to their marrow. The Samnites were reduced ; and
then Pyrrhus came. The people of Tarentum, who called
him over, had little power, and his own state had none, for a
distant expedition. He failed. The Carthaginians next dis
puted the dominion of Sicily with the Romans. They loved
money better than glory ; and the Romans sought money by
winning glory. The men of the sword prevailed in combat
against the shopkeepers.

Two extraordinary men raised up Carthage from the dust.
Hamilcar, a great man, reduced Spain, where he was cut off in
early life : Hannibal, his son, a greater man, perhaps the greatest
of men, trained the armies and led them into Italy against the
Romans. Much has been said, and more might be said, on
this subject. Hannibal never met with his equal, and the rea
son why he did not finally conquer was, that the institutions of
Carthage were inferiour to those of Rome. The policy of Car
thage was to make money ; that of Rome to make conquests.
In consequence of this defect, Carthage lost both money and
conquests ; while Rome accumulated both. Carthage stood
in fear of her allies ; the allies of Rome were afrdd of her.
The conquests of Rcrne were old and well consolidated with
her empire ; those of Carthage recent and still turbulent.
Accordingly, Spain, as soon as Hunnibul left it, blazed out
with wars, that made her the slave of Rome. Italy was more
advanced in slavery, and felt an emulation among her states in
their obedience to their mistress. She used her own allies as
slaves, and the subjects of Carthage as allies.

ROME courted the great ; Hunr.ibal the populace. This was
one CcOise of the ardour and perseverance of the allies in the
service of Rome, who courted the oligarchy of every state to
assist in oppressing it. Anotlicr impediment to Hannibal's
success, was in the government of Carthage. It was popular,

254 HISTORY IS PHILOSOPHY.

and, therefore, a prey to faction. Hanno prevented the sup
plies being sent to Hannibal, that would have given him the
superiority. The jacobins of Carthage destroyed her indepen
dence : they hated their rivals more than they loved their
country.

THE Romans dissembled their anger against Philip, king of
Macedon, as long as they had the Carthaginians to deal with.
When Carthage was subdued, they picked a quarrel with
Philip. Even then they allied themselves with the JfrtoHtins,
the Virginians of ancient Greece, and used them as tools to
subdue Philip. Philip was beaten at Cynocephale, and the
^Etolians were greatly disappointed on the peace that ensued.
For they expected that Rome would allow them to domineer
as despots in Greece ; but Rome very discreetly chose to do
mineer herself.

INDEED, ancient history has a great deal to say to America ;
but America will not hear it.

THE j£tolians, disappointed in their ambition, then said a
great many things that were true ; but they said all from spite,
and were not regarded. Flamininus, the conqueror of Philip,
proclaimed, at the Isthmian games, liberty to the states of
Greece ; that is to say, anarchy ; that all should be weak, and
Rome stronger than all.

HE, and the ten ambassadours, told the Roman senate, that,
unless Lacedsemon were reduced, Nabis, the king of that state,
would be lord of all Greece ; and yet he told the assembled
states of Greece, at Corinth, that it was wholly their affair and
nothing to the Romans. The duplicity and profligacy of this
transaction are exhibited even by Livy, who is a very Roman
in his history.

BY dividing, the Romans conquered. Weak confederacies
are so many strong factions and crazy governments.

THESE old examples shew what France has already done in
Europe, where she has destroyed every one of its republicks ;
and what she will do, if she and her allies, the jacobins, can,
in America. They have begun their work — they have made
progress.

[ 255 ]

.

BALANCE OF EUROPE.

First publisfied in tJtc PallcuKuin, March, 1802.

L WO hundred and eighty years ago, Francis I. king of
France, and Charles V. emperour of Germany, king of Spain,
possessor of the dominions of the house of Austria in Ger
many, Italy, and the Low Countries, began the contests of
ambition, which have since regulated the balance of Etirofie.

RUSSIA and Prussia were then nothing ; England was not
much, for we are to deduct from its present power Scotland,
which was hostile, Ireland, little better civilized than the six
nations, and the American colonies and India settlements,
neither of which were then begun. England then had the
weight of a feather, but of a feather that could turn the scale
Henry VIII. had not always the good sense, to throw his
weight into the right scale : he acted from passion, rather
than from policy. France was greatly overmatched, and
should have had his aid. Afterwards the troubles in France
reduced that country to a state of insignificance, and Philip
II. king of Spain, remained the preponderant power of
Europe. After the middle of the seventeenth century, Louis
XIV advanced to the front rank, as the leader of the Euro
pean republick. Charles II. of England loved his pleasures
too much, and trusted his parliament too little, to dispute that
rank with him. Accordingly, Louis made great conquests,
and annexed Alsace, Lorrain, and a part of the Low Countries
to his vast monarchy.

AT that time, there were only three powers in the north of
Europe, Denmark, Sweden, and Poland. Sweden, especially,
was highly military, and the size of her army made amends
for the scantiness of her wealth and people. Russia was not
born, and Prussia was not then gathered as a nation. Eng
land, Holland, and Austria formed a balance in the beginning
of the eighteenth century for the immense power of France.

256 BALANCE OF POWER.

Spain was then nothing ; for an Austrian and a Bourbon prince
were competitors for its crown.

SOMETHING like a balance was, however, actually main
tained : for at all times, the ambition to establish a universal
monarchy existed ; but, by great good fortune, sufficient obsta
cles to its accomplishment also existed. These were found in
the combination of the weaker powers.

ONE reason for the success for this combination, may be as
cribed to the inferiour military establishments of the several
European states, at that period. A great power found it very
difficult to maintain a great army ; and a small state with a
large army, and, especially, aided by a confederacy with other
weak states, §couid effectually resist a great conqueror.

HENCE, we may observe the great change in the face of
Europe within a century. Armies are large, and more in pro
portion to the size of the several states. New combinations of
politicks are formed, in consequence of the gradual and expe
rienced insignificance of the weak states. New powers, as
Russia and Prussia, have arisen ; and the independence of all
requires, that new principles should be adopted to support the
balance, without which one nation will be the tyrant, and the
rest slaves.

BY the treaty of Westphalia, in 1648, Germany was con
demned to endless anarchy. Its state sovereignties were
scarcely to be counted or controlled.

WHATEVER is divided, is weakened ; and, in politicks,
whatever is weakened, is exposed as a prey. Accordingly, in
every war, Germany furnished soldiers for France, and her
own sons were employed to cut one another's throats.

HOLLAND had some patriotism, one hundred years ago i
faction has since extinguished it ; and, instead of its being
the enemy, it proved in 1794, the auxiliary of French domi
nation.

IN weak .states, fear rules : temporary expedients are
sought, and the rulers seldom f«il in the end to act for their
destroyers, because they are afraid to act against them. Hence
it is, that the weak states of Europe have lately proved more

BALANCE OF POWER. 257

than passive to France : they have made a merit of devoting
themselves to destruction.

IN the present position of Europe, it is obvious, that France
domineers. She has gained positively, by adding territory to
her dominions equal in size, wealth, and people to a second-
rate kingdom ; she has gained relatively, by removing Austria
to a distance, and by weakening that ancient rival to such a
degree, as to secure her inaction for an age.

PRUSSIA has gained prodigiously by the partition of Poland.
It was natural to think, that Prussia had become powerful
enough to disregard France ; but it has unexpectedly happen
ed, that Prussia has gained power without gaining entire inde
pendence. Austria is weaker ; but France is stronger than
ever. Besides, Russia is, more than ever, the preponderating
power of the North. Of course it is, that Prussia still leans
upon France, is more than ever afraid to provoke her dis
pleasure, and, perhaps, more than ever really interested in her
alliance, to secure herself against Russia.

FRANCE, then, finds no counterpoise in Prussia. Sweden
and Denmark are no longer of any consequence. Their ar
mies no longer bear any proportion to their extent of territory,
and other powers have augmented their forces in proportion to
their number of subjects. Denmark and Sweden have, of
course, declined, both positively and relatively. Poland is an
nihilated as an independent power. Prussia, instead of bal
ancing the power of France, is her ally, nearly as Latium was
the ally of Rome.

RUSSIA is a colossus, but, with one foot on the Frozen
ocean, and the other on the Black sea, she cannot reach her
antagonist in the south of Europe.

No foe is near enough, or powerful enough to save Europe
from subjection, but Great Britain. Every independent power
has, therefore, a manifest interest in the sufficiency of the
British force to balance that of France.

IT will be objected, that Britain has vastly grown in her na
val strength ; that if France domineers on the land, Great-
Britain is the despot of the ocean. Why, therefore, it will be
33

258 BALANCE OF POWER,

asked by the democrats, shall we view the aggrandizement of
France with terrour, when her enemy is no less formidable,
and much more in our way, sometimes as a competitor, often
as a tyrant ?

THE answer is, that the modern balance of power in Europe
is only of the great powers : the minor powers are no more*
Switzerland, the Italian princes and states, Holland, even
Spain, and the Baltick states, excepting Russia, are annihila
ted. Either there can be no balance, or it must be formed
by the counterpoise of great states. When, therefore, France
has grown to such a giant size, no dwarf can be her antago
nist. The prodigious increase of the British navy is some
counterpoise, but, we fear, a very insufficient one, for the tre
mendous means and still more formidable spirit of France.

IT is allowed, that the British navy, considered in an ab
stract point, is too large and too superiour to that of all other
nations, especially of our own. But naval power, it may be
said, is rather less fitted for the purposes of national aggran
dizement, than any other. It is very likely to provoke ene
mies, and not well adapted to subdue them. It is a glittering-
defensive armour. And, surely, all independent nations ought
to rejoice, that Great Britain wears it. Great as its energy is,
it is not too great to defend her from her adversary. If it be
an evil, for that navy to be so great, it is clearly a less evil,
than for the French power to be freed from its resistance.
Remove that resistance, and France would rule the civilized
world.

TURKEY was formerly a great power, and a check on Aus
tria and Russia. But as France finds Turkey too weak for
that purpose ; as she finds, that the fall of her old ally is not
to be prevented, her policy will be to profit by her fall.

WE have seen the eagerness of Buonaparte to possess
himself of Egypt ; and, had it not been for sir Sidney Smith,
perhaps he would have conquered Syria, and marched to Con
stantinople. As long as France remains inferiour at sea, she
•will desire to use the Turkish dominions, as a station to con-

BALANCE OP POWER. 259

fine the Russians to the Black sea, and to collect the troops
and resources to annoy the English empire in India. France,
moreover, will desire to seize a part of Turkey, at least Candia,
because, if she does not, Russia will. Turkey cannot be long
hindered from falling, and cannot fall, without producing a
scramble for her spoils.

IT is hence, on the review of European affairs, obvious to
remark, that all the states have become military in some pro
portion to their wealth and populousness. Hence, the weak
states, that were of consequence one hundred years ago, have
sunk into insignificance, since the great powers have armed
and taken their natural superiority. Hence, also, it is apparent,
that nothing but military strength is any security for national
independence; as all the weak states have become abject, weak,
and despised. It is, also, evident, that the great powers have
grown in strength, and that France has outgrown them all.
Great Britain has, indeed, increased in commerce and wealth ;
and France has declined in both ; but France has despised all
occupation but that of the sword : she has destroyed her artisans
and multiplied her soldiers. This has ensured her poverty, and
her conquests : it has filled her army, and emptied her work
shops. England, on the contrary, has found her prosperity an
impediment to her warlike operations. A man's labour is worth
much in England, and it is expensive to use it in the field of
war ; it is of use to France only in that field.

IT takes England, therefore, a long period to put on her
armour ; and it is worn with infinite expense. But, after it is
adjusted to her limbs, she is capable of vast energy, because
she gradually adopts a war system, and accommodates her
industry to her situation. The war, at length, creates its own
resources ; and industry, that is ever found, when pressed by
necessity, capable of working miracles, is sure to display them
in furnishing the resources. Accordingly, we conclude, that
the peace, by disarming England, exposes her to a danger and
disadvantage infinitely beyond what she had to apprehend from
the continuance of the war.

260 BALANCE OF POWER.

FRANCE experiences no such disadvantage. She will not
let her troops be idle. If Toussaint should not find employ
ment for them, she will send them to Louisiana : she will find
work or make it.

BUT England has increased too in military strength and
spirit. Our democrats arc silly enough to think that nation
subject to a standing army ; the truth is, a rnilitia, an effective
militia of the real people, constitutes the force of Great Britain :
it is the nation that holds the sword.

ADD to this, the vast increase of the British power in India.
On the whole, we may hope, that Great Britain will be able
to maintain the post of glory and danger, in which she is
placed. She cannot defend herself, without making other na
tions secure ; nor is it possible, that her fall should happen,
without infinite peril, perhaps utter ruin, to the independence
of all other powers. France was, formerly, emulous of com
mercial greatness ; but the spirit, that Colbert awakened, and
that seemed to balance the spirit of chivalry of the nation, is
apparently quenched. France is more military and less com
mercial, than ever she was before ; England, on the contrary,
is more than ever commercial. The basis of her naval su
periority is widened. Hence we may infer, that Britain will
continue to beat France at sea.

THIS review, also, serves to exhibit, in a proper light, the
policy, if it be Jiolicy^ of disarming the United States at a time
of unprecedented danger. While all Europe is sliding from
its old foundations ; while France is pouring myriads of black,
white, and ring-streaked banditti into St. Domingo, and is
ready to vomit them on our shores, we are boastfully consign
ing our little army to nothing, and our navy to the worms.

IT is in peace only that armies can be trained ; it is in peace
only that navies can be prepared, and a very long preparation
is requisite. We have abolished revenue enough, that no fwor
man felly the collection of which sent no son of laborious fwverty
tiujijierlcss to btd, to build a fleet sufficient for our protection.
Coaches, loaf sugar, and whiskey, are to go free, and our com
merce to wear shackles I Nothing is easier than for the United

BALANCE OP POWER. 261

States to provide thirty ships of the line and sixty frigates.
Such a force would protect our rights ; and for want of it,
France alone has plundered us of more than such a fleet would
have cost to build, and eciuip, and maintain during the late war.

IT is childish prattle, to inquire, what need have we of force ?
A nation that neglects its naval and military power, will not
preserve its independence : weakness is subjugation. Si -vis
pacem, para helium, is a maxim of good sense, but not of the
democrats. To be without force or treasure, used to be deemed
the course for a government to be without consideration ; but,
of late, it is deemed to be, though an evil, yet a less evil than
another, that those, who are dismantling our government, like
an old ship, that is to be broken up for the old iron, should be
without popularity.

How long shall men, whose views are merely party or per
sonal, whose foresight scarcely reaches a week forward, be
encouraged by our suffrages to work for our undoing ! A system
so selfish and so mean, that begins and ends with the indivi
dual interests of those who act for us, is too gross to be mis
understood, and too mischievous long to be tolerated. It ap
pears probable, that the PEOPLE will clearly discern how they
ought to vote, two years before they will have the opportunity.
Federal truth has begun its awful progress, and it will prevail :
its sun has set to rise again.

C 262 ]

POLITICAL REVIEW.

N°. I.

J-'irst published in the Palladium, October, 1802.

TH

'. E war of arms is at an end ; the war of the custom-house
is commenced between France and England. More than ever
their policy relates to the concerns of other powers ; and the
consequences of their competition will shew, that the same act,
which has given peace to themselves, has scattered the seeds
of discord among their neighbours. To lessen the commerce,
of England, will lessen her power. Buonaparte will, therefore,
try all the means that his policy can employ, to make his rival
defenceless, before he forces her to be hostile.

IT is not clear, that the people of England were willing any
longer to prosecute the war ; but it is now unquestionably clear,
that it was their great ultimate interest to pursue it. Peace
has brought with it no new resources ; it has dried up those
which spring up with a state of war : for war makes many of
its own means. Peace divides the commerce, that war gave
to her entire : her enemies, who lately did not own a ship, are
now England's competitors. Their business was to destroy ;
now it is to produce and to fabricate. They want less ; they
supply more. They diminish her means ; and they recruit
their own. England looks at the peace with mingled shame
and dread ; shame, because she is already degraded in the eyes
of strangers, if not in her own ; with dread, for France has
gained new power, and shews her old ambition.

IT is childish to say, that Mr. Pitt ought to have proceeded
with the war, if he understood the position of things. He
understood it ; but it is alleged, and, perhaps, it is true, that
the British nation preferred present ease, which they expected,
and have failed of realizing, by peace, to the glory, the burdens
and the distant ultimate security of war. We Americans
choose to say, and we are vain-glorious enough to believe, that

POLITICAL REVIEW. 263

the people are not counted for any thing any where, except in
America. The truth is, the voice of the nation, when it con
veys its wisdom or its deliberate mistakes, is more sure to pene
trate audibly, and with effect, the recesses of St. James's, than
those of Monticello. The British nation was weary of the war,
aad, therefore, it was ended. Peace will present an aspect of
danger, which its courage will not be summoned to face.
The only question is, whether, on viewing its formidable con
sequences, its policy will be able to surmount or elude them.
A nice problem it is. America is infinitely interested in its
favourable solution.

WHEN we behold France with a power so vast, as to excite
and enable her to undertake almost every thing, and a spirit
still more romantick and vast, to prompt her to achieve impos
sibilities, we are led to think of a new Roman empire, under
which the civilized world is first to bleed, and then to sweat in
Chains. We again see Rome, after the first Punick war ; and,
alas ! we see Europe without a Hannibal, unless we look for
him in England's Nelson or Smith. The little states are
nothing ; they are slaves, paid by titles to freedom for hewing
wood and drawing water. The king of Prussia, though power
ful, is no Philip ; he is only an Attalus or Eumenes, under
France. Spain has nothing of an independent monarchy, but
the name. As to Holland, Switzerland, and the Cisalpine or
Italian republicks, they are republicks during pleasure ; they
are sovereign, as Deiotarus, or Ariarathes, or Prusias were, to
tame them for subjection. They are new recruits for the
French republick, committed first to the drill-serjeant, before
they are turned into the ranks. They will be cudgelled, if they
prove refractory. They will be made to obey, like slaves, and
yet to say and to swear, on occasion, that they are sovereign
and independent, as may best suit the ambitious policy of
France. Old Rome was too cautious and too much in earnest
in her plan, to make a conquered people her subjects at once.
She gave them a king, or made a pretty, little, snug indepen
dent republick for them, till every man was dead and gone,
who was born and educated in independence ; her bitter drugs

264 POLITICAL REVIEW.

were all given in honey. So it is with France. Europe has
no longer any minor powers ; they are swallowed up by France.
Her establishment in Louisiana, which, though certain, is
delayed only to choose the moment, when it will be most fatal
to us, will convince even America, that distance is no protec
tion : the plagues of Egypt will be in our bosoms, and in our
porridge -pots. Our pity or our folly has made us weep or
wonder at the events of Europe. We have/ had our spasms,
when we saw distress and disease abroad ; we are doomed by-
fate to scratch with a mortal leprosy of our own : Gehazi, by
accepting bribes, is smitten with Naaman's pestilence. Our
government has little force, and, since the deplorable fourth
of March, 1801, less than ever, to defend Kentucky and Ten
nessee from the arms of France : soon or late they will fall vic
tims to their arts. In spirit and policy we are Dutchmen :
we are to lose our honour and our safety ; and the economical
statesmen, whom the wrath of heaven has placed at our head,
will inquire what are they worth in shillings. Every penny of
their folly will cost a pound.

BUT, say Job's comforters, France is a republick, and, of
course, a sister republick will not only find friendship, but secu
rity, in the aggrandizement of France. Miserable comforters
are all these ! Before this boasted revolution, Europe had many
free republicks. Alas ! they are no more. France, proclaim
ing war against palaces, has waged it against commonwealths.
Switzerland, Holland, Geneva, Venice, Lucca, Genoa are gone,
and ythe wretched Batavian, Helvetian, and Italian republicks,
are but the faint images, the spectres, that haunt the sepulchres,
where they rot. So far has France been from paying exclu
sive regard to republicks, that she has considered them, not
as associates, but as victims. Venice she sold to the emperour.
Holland she taxed openly for her own wants, till she drove
her rich men into banishment. She " ransomed Dutch liberty,"
with a vengeance, " from the hands of the opulent :" — so far
she took counsel from the Worcester Farmer ; or he from her
admired example. From Switzerland she drained her youth
to be food for gun-powder. This is not all. But the king of

POLITICAL REVIEW. 265

Etruria is tricked out in purple robes, like a playhouse
monarch, to treud the stage in mock dignity. The proud
Spaniard finds for France gold and dollars, and for that proof
of " civism" he is treated as headservant in Buonaparte's
kitchen. So that to favour kings, and to depress, plunder, and
destroy republicks, has been the sure and experienced conse
quence of French domination.

LET the ignorant hirelings of France prattle about the cause
of liberty. Let them repeat the second million of times the
silly lie, that we triumph with France. Her triumphs are
terrible. A voice seems to issue from the tombs of the fallen
republicks for our warning. Our citizens are warned, though
our government is not ; and they would be armed, if France or
fate did not ordain, that we should be disarmed and defenceless.

POLITICAL REVIEW. N°. II.

ONE of the consequences of the progress of ancient Rome
to empire was, to lower the spirit of ail other nations, while
she raised her own. Already Buonaparte talks in the tone of
a master ; and his rivals and enemies, like slaves. The em-
perour of Germany has congratulated him in form, because he
has elected himself president of the Italian republick. The
grand Turk has renewed his old treaties with the man, whose
expedition to Egypt, in a time of profound peace, shewed his
absolute contempt of their obligation. Russia smothers her
anger on account of Malta and Corfu. All Europe is striving
to make its hypocrisy conceal its terrour.

AFTER every former war, the question in every state was,
how to arrange its concerns so as best to profit by the mutual
dread, in which every power stood of its neighbour. Since
the treaty of Amiens, the little powers are extinct, and the
only concern is, how to find defence against France : there is
but one leviathan, and half a score of small fish.

BUT, as France emulates old Rome, it is material to note
the points of difference and resemblance.
34

J66 POLITICAL REVIEW.

ROMP: achieved her conquests, while she was republican ;
France is now imfierial, precisely in the state, in which Rome
became pacifick and began to feel decline.

FRANCE is as corrupt, and has had as much to corrupt her,
as Rome had, after the horrours of her civil wars. Yet it is
probable Buonaparte is less of a politician and more of a war-
riour, than Augustus, the second Roman Cesar. The Roman,
too, had no foe near him. Parthia lay beyond the Euphrates ;
and a desart of parching -sand, without fountains of water,
divided the two great empires of Rome and Parthia from each
other. Wars, when they were waged, were, therefore, pro
duced by vain-glory, and very little interested the passions of
the people of either of these states. In order to make the
comparison fairly, we must suppose that Cornelius Sylla, in
stead of abdicating the dictatorship, remained at the head of
the Roman armies, the Buonaparte of Rome. Even then, we
shall scarcely find a formidable enemy left. Gaul and Britain
were barbarous ; Carthage, Greece, Macedonia, and the Syri
an monarchy under Antiochus, were reduced to subjection.
Whereas the modern Sylla finds in England, Austria, and
Russia, a Hannibal, a Philip, and a Mithridates.

FRANCE, then, as military as Rome was under the Cesars,
finds, in these obstacles, infinitely greater ^incentives to her
ambition than they did. She has enemies near, and in force.
Of necessary consequence, her system will not be pacifick :
to make the power of her enemies less, will be the same thing
as to make her own greater. The power of England, depend
ing 'on her navy, will necessarily engage her active hostility.
She will try the utmost efforts of her policy and " diplomatick
skill," to detach the United States from being customers of
Great Britain; and will, if possible, unite them to herself,
as auxiliaries to her scheme of aggrandizement. We have
some thousands of jacobins wicked enough, and some tens of
thousands of democrats weak enough, to second her plan.
They are ready to make the United States the tool of France,
and, in that illustrious character, to revive the famous resolu
tions of Mr. Madison, and the report of Mr. Jefferson on the

POLITICAL REVIEW. '267

privileges and restrictions of our commerce with foreign na
tions, so as to render congress the instrument of their war
upon Sheffield, Manchester, and Birmingham, in England.
Mr. Madison, who knew a great deal less than nothing at all
of his subject, fancied that we could starve these manufactur
ers ; and because we could) he humanely and wisely insisted,
that we ought to starve them ; and, therefore, that we ought to
frame regulations, by which our consumers and the English
manufacturers would both suffer, and the French would gain.
All this, so worthy of a Frenchman, was to be done to restore
to trade its liberty : it was to suffer force, in order to be free.
It was to be compelled to do, as it ought to be disposed, but
was not disposed to do. Not one merchant supported this
scheme ; but it will be revived.

FRANCE will soon have Louisiana. A formal treaty has
already given it to her, and all our papers have published its
contents. She only waits for a more convenient season : she
waits to conquer the islands. She waits to let the true Ameri
cans recover from their fears, and have her partisans profit by
their superiority in our counsels. She will depend on our
fears, to do all the mischief she meditates against Great. Bri
tain, as a peace-offering, to obtain the delay of that which she
meditates against us ; but she will not delay it long, even
though we should commence a war of acts of congress against
British ships and manufactures.

LOUISIANA will produce as much cotton, as Great Britain,
imports ; Georgia already yields two thirds of that amount.
France will be in a hurry to send her legions to settle these
fertile lands, vast enough in extent for an empire. She will /
be able to block up the Mississippi. She will be able to make
terms . for our degradation. She will menace our frontiers,
while her faction in our bosom will enfeeble the centre. In a
military and financial view, we shall become weaker than
ever, at the very moment when we shall more than ever have
need of force.

OUR wealth, supposed by the democratick babblers to be
the incentive to war, is the security for our tamcness. To

268 POLITICAL REVIEW.

get, and to keep, and to enjoy, is the spirit of our nation ; but
to keep with honour and security, is no part of common arith-
inedck. The world, France excepted, is now peopled with
Dutchmen. England is made tame by her banking and fund
ed wealth : she is bound in golden chains. France intends to
take them off, and to put on chains of iron. Compared with
England, France is now what her own Parisian rabble was in
1790, prone to any change, because there is much wealth to
be gained, none to be hazarded. Our half-witted democrats
insist, that great wealth produces war. So far is this from
being true, that the pursuit and the possession of wealth make
a nation not less servile than sordid, willing to take kicks for
pay, and to prefer gain to honour and security. France has
the spiiit of a camp ; the peace of Amiens shews, that Eng
land has that of a counting-house.

POLITICAL REVIEW. N°. III.

CORRECT views of European politicks lead to sound re
sults of the publick judgment on our own. We have been
long, too long, amused with the democratick prattle about the
love of peace, and the love of our fellow-men, and the millen
nium, that would begin as soon as all kings were murdered,
and all the citizen kings were fairly crammed together, forty
deep, into a Philadelphia state-house-yard, or a Paris field of
Mars, or a London Copenhagen-house, to exercise, as a tri
umphant mob, their imprescriptible and more than royal rights
and functions. On tl.e contrary, instead of perpetual peace
among nations, we see a state of things, which renders all
hope of any long peace ridiculously chimerical. Two mighty
champions stand observing each other ; and, though they have
suspended the combat, they have not laid aside their arms :
they are furbishing them up, expecting to renew it. England
is in dread for her existence ; France is full of impatience to
effect the consummation of her ambition. Peace will afford
neither to the one nor the other an hour of relaxation or repose.

POLITICAL REVIEW. 269

It will turn no swords into plough-shares ; but it is an awful
interval of danger and terrour, which requires, that England,
at least, should beat her plough-shares into swords. Including
her militia, her land forces will exceed in the peace establish
ment, as it is called, the number she had on foot at the end of
the American war. A peace, that requires more soldiers than
such a war, is not the beginning of the expected millennium.

How ardent France is to extend her domination, no man of
the least sense and observation can need to be told. She has
not lost a minute to recover St. Domingo, nor to prepare a
great army to take possession of Louisiana, as soon as it
will best answer her purpose. Since the preliminaries of
peace were signed on the first of October, 1801j Buonaparte
has appointed himself president of the Italian republick, in
other, but not plainer, words, king of Italy. She has a treaty
with Portugal, which brings her near enough to the mouth of
the great river Amazon, to secure at a future day, her com
mand of the vast territory, bigger than all France, lying on that
river. She has prohibited all importation of English manufac
tures ; and has obliged her viceroy, the king of Spain, and her
subjects in Holland, to do the like.

WITH these decisive marks of rooted hostility, with these
undisguised preparations of the means to renew the contest,
whenever it can be done with the best prospect of subverting
the government and independence of Great Britain, with all
the parade of equipping new navies in France, and her Spanish
and Dutch provinces, and with her legion of honour, the con
suls, pretorian guards, and with the draft of twice sixty thou
sand men, to fill up the ranks of her armies, who will doubt,
that she is intent on the schemes of her ambition, and will go
to war on the first favourable occasion for their accomplish
ment ?

WHETHER Great Britain is competent to defend herself
against a force so vast, and a spirit of hostility so rancorous
and ardent, is a question of infinite importance to the whole
civilized world, and, perhaps, of as much to the United States,
as to any nation in it.

270 'POLITICAL REVIEW.

TIHE examination of this subject deserves the best pens. We
invite men of ability to favour us with such authentick state
ments of the commerce, revenue, and forces of the British
empire and of France, as will assist us to make conjectures.
The world is threatened with subjection to French military
despotism. Unless Great Britain can defend herself, we are
to look for such another age of iron, as passed in the twelfth
century, when soldiers were ruffians, and all that were not sol
diers were slaves. . \

IN this scene it is some consolation to perceive, that Britain,
at length, discerns her danger. The popularity of the peace
is greatly impaired ; and the aggrandizement of France, since
the preliminaries, has awakened the pride and the fears of
the nation.

BRITISH wealth, commerce, and naval force have greatly
increased since the peace of 1783. Her manufactures export
ed at that period were about nine million and a half of pounds
sterling ; at the peace of 1801, twenty four millions. Her whole
exports, in 17 '83, fourteen millions ; in 1801, thirty Jive millions.
In 1783, her merchant shipping /<°ss than six hundred thousand
tons; in \801,jfifteen hundred thousand. In 1783, her armed
ships of all sorts in commission, less than four hundred ; in
1801, seven hundred.

As this great increase, however, is owing, in a great mea
sure to the war, the question returns, will Great Britain be
able to keefi this superiority over France and her dependencies ?
During the war, the British navy destroyed the commerce
and navigation of her enemies. This forced them to make use
of American ships and capital to do that for them, which Great
Britain would not permit them to do for themselves. Hence,
the vast profits of American ships and merchants ; and hence,
too, the absurd clamour of the democrats, who cursed Great
Britain, as the tyrant of the seas, because she forced our rivals
to become our customers. The boasted principle of free shifis,
free goods, would deprive the United States of a great part of
the fair profits of their neutrality. Belligerent nations could,
in that case, transact their own affairs, and neutrals would have

POLITICAL REVIEW. 271

no gains but freight. This observation is a digression, but it
was obviously proper to make it, as the democrats have never
ceased to misrepresent the subject.

IT is little to be expected, that America will retain all her
navigation and commerce. The nations, which the British
navy depressed, are now making regulations to revive their
commerce and their colony monopolies. France, the boasted
friend of commercial liberty, is setting the example. Indeed
it is clear, that the sole object of her policy is, to stir up every
nation to a contest with England, to break down the English
navigation act, and to establish a more rigorous monopoly sys
tem of her own.

THE vast capital of England, augmented, as it is, beyond
all former times, and beyond all proportion with her rivals,
her manufacturing skill, and the excellence and stability of her
government, so favourable to property, are advantages, which
France has little to counterbalance, except the goodness of her
soil and climate, and the populousness of her territory. Great
Britain has gained much, in respect to political strength, by
her union with Ireland, a measure, that will extend her growth
for some ages ; for Ireland is yet semi-barbarous, and the
more it civilizes, the more it will augment the strength of the
empire. The conquest of Tippoo's country, the Mysore, in
India, consolidates her valuable dominions in that quarter of
the globe. Ceylon is an important acquisition, and we wish it
was in our power to state, how important, to English com
merce. In the West-Indies, Trinidad is large enough to
absorb many millions of British capital, and to become another
Jamaica.

ON the whole, France has gained power, and has lost nothing
of her arrogance ; Great Britain sees her danger, and, without
having lost any of her strength, has recovered her spirits.

I 272 ]
MONITOR.

First published in the Palladium, April, 1804.

XJLCCIDENT may give rise and extent to republicks, but
the fixed laws that govern human actions and passions will
decide their progress and fate. By looking into history and
seeing what has been, we know what will be. It is thus that
dumb experience speaks audibly ; it is thus that witnesses
come from the dead and testify. Are we warned ? No. Are
we roused ? No. We lie in a more death-like sleep than those
witnesses. Yet let us hear their testimony, though it should
not quicken our stupidity, but only double the weight of our
condemnation.

THE experiment of a republick was tried, in all its forms,
by the Romans. While they occupied only one city, and a
few miles of territory near its walls, they had all the virtues
and sustained all the toils and perils of a camp. Every Roman
was born a soldier, and the state entrusted arms to the hands of
those .only who had rights and rank as citizens. But when
Rome extended her empire over all Italy, and then over all
Asia Minor, her size rendered her politicks unmanageable ;
and power in her town-meetings, where the rabble at length
out-voted the real citizens, corrupted all virtue, extinguished
all shame, and trampled on all right, liberty, and justice. Our
constitution, as Washington left it, is good ; but as amend
ments and faction have now modelled it, it is no longer the
same thing.

WE now set out with our experimental project, exactly
where Rome failed with hers : we now begin, where she
ended. We think it wise to spread over half this Western
hemisphere a form, and it is only a form, of government that
answered for Rome, while Rome governed a territory as nar
row as the district of Columbia. The Romans were awed by
oaths, and restrained by the despotism of a camp ; for in every
camp, where there is not mutiny, there must be despotism

MONITOR. 275

\Ve Americans, who laugh at the difference, if difference there
be, between twenty Gods and no God ; we, who have lost our
morals, prate about our liberty. We think, that what the Ro
mans, with the Scipios, and Catuli, and Catos, could not keep,
we, with our Jeffersons, cannot lose. Those great Romans
thought it better not to live at all, than to live slaves ; but we
care more for our ease than our rights. We can bear injustice
better than expense ; and we dread war infinitely more than
dishonour. Hence, when we had our election, we chose in
famy, and paid fifteen millions for it: we compensated the
aggressor for the fatigue of kicking us ; and we celebrate, as a
jubilee, that treaty that has made our debasement an article of
the law of nations. If Rome had ever tamely borne the wrongs
that we took, not merely patiently, but thankfully, joyfully, from
Spain and Buonaparte, Rome would never have been more
than a walled town, where valiant robbers secured their booty.
But we who take insults from slaves, and think it victory and
glory, to buy the forbearance of a tyrant, we talk of Roman
liberty, as if we were emulous of it. The Romans honoured
virtue, and loved glory, and thought it cheaply purchased with
their blood ; we love money, and, if we had glory, we should
joyfully truck it off for more money, or another Louisiana.
With such a difference of spirit, are we to hold the republican
sceptre, that is to sway a million square miles of territory ? If
we resemble any thing Roman, it is such a domination as
Spartacus, and his gladiators and slaves, would have establish
ed, if they had succeeded in their rebellion. The government
of the three fifths of the ancient dominion, and the offscourings
of Europe, has no more exact ancient parallel.

THE plebeians t}f Rome asserted their right to serve in the
highest offices, and at length obtained it ; but the people still
chose the most able and eminent men, who were patricians, and
rejected their worthless tribunes. But we see our tribunes suc
cessful : the judges are at the bar, and the whiskey leaders sit in
judgment upon them. Surely that people have lost their morals,
who bestow their votes on those who have none j surely they

274 MONITOR.

have lost their liberties, when their judges tremble more than
their culprits.

THE Romans maintained some barrier about popular rights,
as long as the tribunes were sacred ; but when Tiberius moved
the people to depose Octavius, a fellow tribune, then violence
ruled the assemblies, and even the shadow of liberty was lost.
We have seen the judiciary law repealed, and the judges,
though made sacred by the constitution, in like manner deposed.

THE Romans, in the days of their degeneracy and corrup
tion, set no more bounds to their favour, than to their resent
ments. While Pompey was their idol, they conferred unlimited
authority upon him, over all the Mediterranean sea, and four
hundred stadia (about forty five miles) within lund. We, in
like manner, devolve on Mr. Jefferson the absolute and uncon
trolled dominion of Louisiana. It was thus the Romans were
made, by their own -uote^ familiar with arbitrary power.

IN the contests of their factions, the conc/uerors inflicted all
Jiossible evils on the fallen fiarty ; and thus they tasted and liked
the sweetness of revenge. Except in removals from office,
and newspaper invectives, in this point our experience is
yet deficient ; but, from the spirit of ardent malice apparent in
the dominant faction, it is manifest, that we have men, who,
though sparing enough of their own blood, would rival Marius
or Anthony in lavishing that of their enemies.

THE Romans were not wholly sunk from liberty, till morals
and religion lost their power. But when the Thomas Paines,
and those who recommended him, as a champion against " the
presses" of that day, had introduced the doctrines of Epicu
rus, the Roman people became almost as corrupt as the French
are now, and almost as shameless as the favoured patriots ~o$
our country, who are the first to get office.

GRADUALLY, all power centred in the Roman populace.
While they voted by centuries, (the comitia centuriata) pro
perty had influence, and could defend itself ; but, at length, the
doctrine of universal suffrage prevailed. The rabble, not only
of Rome, but of all Italy, and of all the conquered nations,
flowed in. In Tiberim^ dejiuxit Orontes. Rome could no

MONITOR. 275

more be found in Rome itself, than we can see our own coun
trymen in the Duanes and Gallatins, and Louisianians, of the
present day. The senate of Rome sunk to nothing ; the own
er* uf the country no longer governed it. A single assembly
seemed to govern the world, and the worst men in it governed
that assembly.

THUS we see the passions and vices of men operate uni
formly. What remains, and there is not much of this resem*
blance that remains, unfinished, will be completed.

THE chief hazard that attends the liberty of any great peo
ple, lies in their blindness to the danger. A weak people
may descry ruin before it overwhelms them, without any
power to retard or repel its advance ; but a powerful nation,
like our own, can be ruined only by its blindness, that will not
see destruction as it comes ; or by its apathy and 'selfishness,
that will not stir, though it see3 it.

OUR fate is not foretold by signs and wonders : the meteors
do not indeed glare in the form of types, and print it legibly
in the sky ; but our warning is as distinct, and almost as
awful, as if it were announced in thunder by the concussion of
all the elements.

C 276 ]

THE REPUBLICAN.
N°. I.

First published in the Repertory, yuly, 180-1.

W E enjoy, or rather, till very lately, we did enjoy liberty to*
as great an extent, as it has ever been asserted, and to a much
greater, than it has ever been successfully maintained. Kind
heaven that gave it, best knows how frail the tenure and
how short its date ! Vanity, our only national passion, that is
never cloyed with its feasts, nor tired with its activity, rates
high enough the pride of our distinction as a free people,
without once regarding the perils which environ tJaa, as eveiy
other sort of pre-eminence. We have absurdly and presump
tuously considered our condition as citizens, not as a state of
probation for the trial of our virtues, but the heaven where
their indolence is to find rest, and their selfishness an ever
lasting reward. We have dared to suppose our political pro
bation was over, and that a republican constitution, when once
fairly engrossed in parchment, was a bridge over chaos that
could defy the discord of all its elements. The decision of a
majority, adopting such a constitution, has sounded in our ears
like a voice saying to the tempestuous sea of liberty, thus far
shalt thou go, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed.

HENCE it is, that the unthinking and least-informed of our
citizens have been so ready to look with levity and distrust on
senates, courts, and judges, the bulwarks of our liberty, and
with complacency on the licentious faction that is destined to
subvert it. We have read ourselves, or have been told by
those whom ancient history has instructed, that republicks
breed factions, and that factions breed tyrants. We have seen
this faction, and its favourites who are thirsting to be tyrants,
but we have sought and found comfort in our vanity, when it
asserts, that we have the sense to unmask our flatterers, and
the virtue that will scorn their bribes ; we, therefore, shall
stand, though the liberty of Greece has perished. All this we

THE REPUBLICAN. 2J7

continue to say, while we see an election carried against a
majority of freemen, and an administration, that has prostrated
the judiciary and the constitution, that has its hirelings and
emissaries scattered over the face of the land, and that has un
constitutionally annexed to the United States an empire, as a
fund for patronage, and in which executive despotism is es
tablished by law. We see ourselves in the full exercise of the
forms of election, when the substance is gone. We have
some members in congress with a faithful meanness to repre
sent our servility, and others to represent our nullity in the
union ; but our vote and influence avail no more, than that of
the Isle of Man in the politicks of Great Braitain. If, then,
we have not survived our political liberty, we have lived long
enough to see the pillars of its security crumble to powder.
If the middle and Eastern states still retain any thing in the
union worth possessing, we hold it by a precarious and de
grading tenure ; not as of right, but by sufferance ; not as the
guarded treasure of freemen, but as the pittance, which the
disdain of conquerors has left to their captives.

WHILE we look round with grief and terrour on so much
of the work of destruction, as three years have accomplished,
we resolve to hope and sleep in security for the future. We
will not believe, that the actual prevalence of a faction is any
thing worse, than an adverse accident, to which all human
affairs are liable. Demagogues have taken advantage of our
first slumbers, but we are awaking and shall burst their " Lilli
putian ties ;" and as we really do expect, that the jacobins will
divide, and that *** and others will turn state's evidence to con
vict their accomplices, we resolve to indulge our hopes and our
indolence together, and leave it to time, no matter what time,
and truth, to do their slow but sure work, without our concur
rence. Wre still cherish the theories that are dear to our
vanity. WTe still expect, that men will act in their politicks,
as if they had no passions, and will be most callous or superi-
our to their influence at the very moment, when the arts of
tyrants or the progress of public k disorders have exalted
them to fury. Then, yes, then, in that chosen hour, reason

2?8 THE REPUBLICAN.

will display her authority, because she will be free to combat
errour. Her voice will awe tumult into silence : revolution
will quench her powder when it is half exploded ; the thunder
will be checked in mid volley.

SUCH are the consolations that bedlam gives to philosophy,
and that philosophy faithfully gives back to bedlam — .and bed
lam enjoys them. The Chronicle, with the fervour of scur
rility and all the sincerity of ignorance, avers, that there is no
danger — our affairs go on well ; and Middlesex is comforted.
They can see no danger : if Etna should daze, it would not
cure the moles of their blindness.

BUT all other men who have eyes are forced to confess,
that the progress of our affairs is in conformity with the fixed
laws of our nature, and the known course of republicks. Our
wisdom made a government and committed it to our virtue to
keep; but our passions have engrossed it, and they have
armed our vices to maintain their usurpation.

WHAT then are we to do ? Are we to sit still, as hereto
fore, till we are overtaken by destruction, or shall we rouse
now, late as it is, and shew by our effort against a jacobin fac
tion, that, if we cannot escape, we will not deserve, our fate ?

THE REPUBLICAN. N°. II.

WE justly consider the condition of civil liberty as the most
exalted, to which any nation can aspire ; but high as its rank
is, and precious as are 'its prerogatives, it has not pleased
God, in the order of his providence, to confer this pre-eminent
blessing, except upon a veiy few, and those very small, spots
of the universe. The rest sit in darkness, and as little desire
the light of liberty, as they are fit to endure it.

W^E are ready to wonder, that the best gifts are the most
sparingly bestowed, and rashly to conclude, that despotism is
the decree of heaven, because by far the largest part of the
world lies bound in its fetters. But, either on tracing the

THE REPUBLICAN. 279

course of events in history, or on examining the character and
passions of man, we shall find, that the work of slavery is his
own, and that he is not condemned to wear chains, till he has
been his own artificer to forge them. We shall find, that
society cannot subsist, and that the streets of Boston would be
worse than the lion's den, unless the appetites and passions of
the violent are made subject to an adequate control. How
much control will be adequate to that end, is a problem of no
easy solution beforehand, and of no sort of difficulty after some
experience. For all who have any thing to defend, and all,
indeed, who have nothing to ask protection for, but their lives,
will desire that protection ; and not only acquiesce, but rejoice
in the progress of those slave-making intrigues and tumults,
which, at length, assure to society its repose, though it sleeps
in bondage. Thus it will happen, and, as it is the course of
nature, it cannot be resisted, that there will soon or late be
control and government enough.

IT is, also, obvious, that there may be, and probably will
be, the least control and the most liberty there, where the
turbulent passions arc the least excited, and where the old
habits and sober reasons of the people are left free to govern
them.

HENCE it is undeniably plain, that the mock patriots, the
opposers of Washington and the constitution, from 1788 to
this day, who, under pretext of being the people's friends,
have kept them in a state of continual jealousy, irritation,
and discontent, have deceived the people, and perhaps them
selves, in regard to the tendency of their principles and con
duct ; for, instead of lessening the pressure of government,
and contracting the sphere of its powers, they have removed
the field-marks that bounded its exercise, and left it arbitrary
and without limits. The passions of the people have been
kept in agitation, till the influence of truth, reason, and the
excellent habits we derive from our ancestors is lost or greatly
impaired ; till it is plain, that those, whom manners and morals
can no longer govern, miist be governed by force j and that

280 THE REPUBLICAN.

force a dominant faction derives from the passions of its
adherents : on that alone they rely.

TAKE one example, which will illustrate the case as well as
a hundred : the British treaty was opposed by a faction, headed
by six or eight mob leaders in our cities, and a rabble, whom
the arts of these leaders had trained for their purpose. Could
a feeble government, could mere truth and calm reason, point
ing out the best publick interest, have carried that treaty
through and effected its execution in good faith, had not the
virtue and firmness of Washington supplied an almost super
human energy to its powers at the moment ? No treaty made
by the government has ever proved more signally beneficial.
The nature of the treaty, however, is not to the point of the
present argument. Suppose a mob opposition had defeated it,
and confusion, if not war, had ensued, the confusion that every
society is fated to suffer, when, on a trial of strength, a faction
in its bosom is found stronger than its government ; on this
supposition, and that the conquering faction had seized the
reins of power, is it to be believed, that they would not in
stantly provide against a like opposition to their own treaties ?
Did they not so provide, and annex Louisiana, and squander
millions in a week ? Have we not seen in France, how early
and how effectually the conqueror takes care to prevent
another rival from playing the same game, by which he him
self prevailed against his predecessor ?

LET any man, who has any understanding, exercise it to
see, that the American jacobin party, by rousing the popular
passions, inevitably augments the powers of government, and
contracts within narrower bounds, and on a less sound founda
tion, the privileges of the people.

FACTS, yes, facts that speak in terrour to the soul, confirm
this speculative reasoning. What limits are there to the pre
rogatives of the present administration ? and whose business is
it, and in whose power does it lie, to keep them within those
limits ? Surely not in the senate ; the small states are .now in
vassalage, and they obey the nod of Virginia. Not in the judi
ciary ; that fortress, which the constitution had made too strong

THE REPUBLICAN. o$i

for an assault, can now be reduced by famine. The constitu
tion, alas ! that sleeps with Washington, having no mourners
but the virtuous, and no monument but history. Louisiana, in
open and avowed defiance of the constitution, is by treaty to be
added to the union : the bread of the children of the union is
'Q be taken and given to the dogs.

JUDGE, then, good men and true, judge by the effects,
whether the tendency of the intrigues of the party was to
extend or contract the measure of popular liberty. Judge,
whether the little finger of Jefferson is not thicker than the
loins of Washington's administration ; and, after you have
judged, and felt the terrour that will be inspired by the result,
then reflect, how little your efforts can avail to prevent the
continuance, nay, the perpetuity of his power. Reflect, and
be calm ! Patience is the virtue of slaves, and almost the only
one that will pass for merit with their masters.

[ 282 3

A SKETCH

OF

THE CHARACTER OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON.

i HE following sketch, written immediately after the death of the ever to be lamented
Hamilton, was read to a select company of friends, and at their desire it first appeared in
the Repertory, July. 1804.

AT is with really great men as with great literary works, the
excellence of both is best tested by the extent and durableness
of their impression. The publick has not suddenly, but after
an experience of five and twenty years, taken that impression
of the just celebrity of ALEXANDER HAMILTON, that nothing
but his extraordinary intrinsick merit could have made, and
still less, could have made so deep and maintained so long. In
this case, it is safe and correct to judge by effects : we some
times calculate the height of a mountain, by measuring the
length of its shadow.

IT is not a party, for party distinctions, to the honour of our
citizens be it said, are confounded by the event ; it is a nation,
that weeps for its bereavement. We weep, as the Romans
did over the ashes of Germanicus. It is a thoughtful, forebod
ing sorrow, that takes possession of the heart, and sinks it with

no counterfeited heaviness.

»

IT is here proper and not invidious to remark, that, as the
emulation excited by conducting great affairs commonly trains
and exhibits great talents, it is seldom the case, that the fairest
and soundest judgment of a great man's merit is to be gained,
exclusively, from his associates in counsel or in action. Per
sons of conspicuous merit themselves are, not unfrequently,
bad judges and still worse witnesses on this point ; often rivals,
sometimes enemies ; almost always unjust, and still oftener
envious or cold. The opinionsM.hey give to the publick, as well
us those they privately formed for themselves, are, of course,
discoloured with the hue of their prejudices and resentments.

SKETCH OP HAMILTON. 283

BUT the body of the people, who cannot feel a spirit of rival-
ship towards those, whom they see elevated by nature and
education so far above their heads, are more equitable, and,
supposing a competent time and opportunity for information
on the subject, more intelligent judges. Even party rancour,
eager to maim the living, scorns to strip the slain. The most
hostile passions are soothed or baffled by the fall of their anta
gonist. Then, if not sooner, the very multitude will fairly decide
on character, according to their experience of its impression ;
and as long as virtue, not unfrequently for a time obscured, is
ever respectable when distinctly seen, they cannot withhold,
and they will not stint their admiration.

IF then the popular estimation is ever to be taken for the
true one, the uncommonly profound publick sorrow for the
death of ALEXANDER HAMILTON sufficiently explains and vin
dicates itself. He had not made himself dear to the passions
of the multitude by condescending, in defiance of his honour
and conscience, to become their instrument : he is not lamented,
because a skilful flatterer is now mute for ever. It was by the
practice of no art, by wearing no disguise ; it was not by acci
dent, or by the levity or profligacy of party, but in despite of
its malignant misrepresentation ; it was by bold and inflexible
adherence to truth, by loving his country better than himself,
preferring its interest to its favour, and serving it, when it was
unwilling and unthankful, in a manner that no other person
could, that he rose ; and the true popularity, the homage that
is paid to virtue, followed him. It was not in the power of
party or envy to pull him down ; but he rose with the re
fulgence of a star, till the very prejudice, that could not reach,
was at length almost ready to adore him.

IT is, indeed, no imagined wound that inflicts so keen an
anguish. Since the news of his death, the novel and strange
events of Europe have succeeded each other unregarded ; the
nation has been enchained to its subject, and broods over its
grief, which is more deep than eloquent, which though dumb,
can make itself felt without utterance, and which does not

284 SKETCH OF

merely pass, but, like an electrical shock, at the same instant
smites and astonishes, as it passes from Georgia to Newhamp-
shire,

THERE is a kind of force put upon our thoughts by this
disaster, which detains and rivets them to a closer contempla
tion of those resplendent virtues, that are now lost, except to
memory, and there they will dwell for ever.

THAT writer would deserve the fame of a publick benefac
tor, who could exhibit the character of HAMILTON, with the
truth and force that all who intimately knew him conceived it :
his example would then take the same ascendant, as his talents.
The portrait alone, however exquisitely finished, could not
inspire genius where it is not ; but, if the world should again
have possession of so rare a gift, it might awaken it where it
sleeps, as by a spark from heaven's own altar ; for, surely, if
there is any thing like divinity in man, it is in his admiration
of virtue.

BUT who alive can exhibit this portrait? If our age, on that
supposition more fruitful than any other, had produced two
HAMILTONS, one of them might then have depicted the other.
To delineate genius one must feel its power: HAMILTON, and
he alone, with all its inspirations, could have transfused its
whole fervid soul into the picture, and swelled its lineaments
into life. The writer's mind, expanding with his own peculiar
enthusiasm, and glowing with kindred fires, would then have
stretched to the dimensions of his subject.

SUCH is the infirmity of human nature, it is very difficult for
a man, who is greatly the superiour of his associates, to pre
serve their friendship without abatement ; yet, though he could
not possibly conceal his superiority, he was so little inclined to
display it, he was so much at ease in its possession, that no
jealousy or envy chilled his bosom, when his friends obtained
praise. He was, indeed, so entirely the friend of his friends,
so magnanimous, so superiour, or, more properly, so insensi
ble to all exclusive selfishness of spirit, so frank, so ardent, yet
so little overbearing, so much trusted, admired, beloved, almost
adored, that his power over their affections was entire, and

HAMILTON. 285

lasted through his life. We do not believe, that he left an}'
worthy man his foe, who had ever been his friend.

MEN of the most elevated minds have not always the readiest
discernment of character. Perhaps he was sometimes too sud
den and too lavish in bestowing his confidence : his manly spi
rit, disdaining artifice, suspected none. But, while the power
of his friends over him seemed to have no limits, and really
had none, in respect to those things which were of a nature to
be yielded, no man, not the Roman Cato himself, was more in
flexible on every point that touched, or only seemed to touch,
integrity and honour. With him, it was not enough to be un
suspected ; his bosom would have glowed, like a furnace, at
its own whispers of reproach. Mere purity would have seemed
to him below praise ; and such were his habits, and such his
nature, that the pecuniary temptations, which many others can
only with great exertion and self-denial resist, had no attrac
tions for him. He was very far from obstinate ; yet, as his
friends assailed his opinions with less profound thought, than
he had devoted to them, they were seldom shaken by discus
sion. He defended them, however, with as much mildness as
force, and evinced, that, if he did not yield, it was not for want
of gentleness or modesty.

THE tears that flow on this fond recital, will never dry up.
My heart, penetrated with the remembrance of the man, grows
liquid as I write, and I could pour it out like water. I could
weep too for my country, which, mournful as it is, does not
know the half of its loss. It deeply laments, when it turns its
eyes back, and sees what HAMILTON 'was ; but my soul stiffens
with despair, when I think what HAMILTON would have been.

His social affections and his private virtues are not, however,
so properly the object of publick attention, as the conspicuous
and commanding qualities that gave him his fame and influence
in the world. It is not as Apollo, enchanting the shepherds
with his lyre, that we deplore him ; it is as Hercules, treach
erously slain in the midst of his unfinished labours, leaving the
world overrun with monsters.

286 SKETCH OF

His early life we pass over ; though his heroick spirit, in
the army, has furnished a theme, that is dear to patriotism, and
•will be sacred to glory.

IN all the different stations, in which a life of active useful
ness has placed him, we find him not more remarkably dis
tinguished by the extent, than by the variety and versatility of
his talents. In every place he made it apparent, that no other
man could have filled it so well ; and in times of critical impor
tance, in which alone he desired employment, his services
were justly deemed absolutely indispensable. As secretary of
the treasury, his was the powerful spirit that presided over
the chaos :

Confusion heard his voice, and wild uproar
Stood ruled ....

INDEED, in organizing the federal government in 1789, every
man, of either sense or candour, will allow, the difficulty seem
ed greater than the first-rate abilities could surmount. The
event has shewn, that his abilities were greater than those diffi
culties. He surmounted them — and Washington's administra
tion was the most wise and beneficent, the) most prosperous, and
ought to be the most popular, that ew1 was intrusted with
the affairs of a nation. Great as was Washington's merit,
much of it in plan, much in execution, will of course devolve
upon his minister.

As a lawyer, his comprehensive genius reached the princi
ples of his profession : he compassed its extent, he fathomed
its profound, perhaps, even more familiarly and easily, than
the ordinary rules of its practice. With most men law is a
trade ; with him it was a science.

As a statesman, he was not more distinguished by the great
extent of his views, than by the caution with which he provid
ed against impediments, and the watchfulness of his care over
right and the liberty of the subject. In none of the many
revenue bills, which he framed, though committees reported
them, is there to be found a single clause that savours of des-
potick power ; not one that the sagest champions of law and
liberty would, on that ground, hesitate to approve and adopt.

HAMILTON. 287

IT is rare, that a man, who owes so much to nature, descends
to seek more from industry ; but he seemed to depend on indus
try, as if nature had done nothing for him. His habits of
investigation were very remarkable ; his mind seemed to cling
to his subject, till he had exhausted it. Hence the uncommon
superiority of his reasoning powers, a superiority, that seemed
to be augmented from every source, and to be fortified by every
auxiliary, learning, taste, wit, imagination, and eloquence.
These were embellished and enforced by his temper and man
ners, by his fame and his virtues. It is difficult, in the midst
of such various excellence, to say, in what particular the effect
of his greatness was most manifest. No man more promptly
discerned truth ; no man more clearly displayed it : it was not
merely made visible — it seemed to come bright with illumina
tion from his lips. But prompt and clear as he was, fervid as
Demosthenes, like Cicero, full of resource, he was not less
remarkable for the copiousness and completeness of his argu
ment, that left little for cavil, and nothing for doubt. Some
men take their strongest argument as a weapon, and use no
other ; but he left nothing to be inquired for more-— nothing
to be answered. He not only disarmed his adversaries of their
pretexts and objections, but he stripped them of all excuse
for having urged them ; he confounded and subdued, as well
as convinced. He indemnified them, however, by making his.
discussion a complete map of his subject ; so that his oppo
nents might, indeed, feel ashamed of their mistakes, but they
could not repeat them. In fact, it was no common effort that
could preserve a really able antagonist from becoming his
convert ; for the truth, which his researches so distinctly pre
sented to the understanding of others, was rendered almost
irresistibly commanding and impressive by the love and reve
rence, which, it was ever apparent, he profoundly cherished
for it in his own. While patriotism glowed in his heart, wis
dom blended in his speech her authority with her charms.

SUCH, also, is the character of his writings. Judiciously
collected, they will be a publick treasure.

288 SKETCH OF

No man ever more disdained duplicity? or carried frankness
further than he. This gave to his political opponents some
temporary advantages, and currency to some popular preju
dices, which he would have lived down, if his death had not pre
maturely dispelled them. He knew, that factions have ever
in the end prevailed in free states ; and, as he saw no security
(and who living can see any adequate ?) against the destruction
of that liberty which he loved, and for which he was ever ready
to devote his life, he spoke at all times according to his anxious
forebodings ; and his enemies interpreted all that he said accord
ing to the supposed interest of their party.

BUT he ever extorted confidence, even when he most pro
voked opposition. It was impossible to deny, that he was a
patriot, and such a patriot, as, seeking neither popularity nor
office, without artifice, without meanness, the best Romans in
their best days would have admitted to citizenship and to the
consulate. Virtue, so rare, so pure, so bold, by its very purity
and excellence, inspired suspicion, as a prodigy. His enemies
judged of him by themselves : so splendid and arduous were
his services, they could not find it in their hearts to believe,
that they were disinterested.

UNPARALLELED as they were, they were, nevertheless, no
otherwise requited, than by the applause of all good men,
and by his own enjoyment of the spectacle of that national
prosperity and honour, which was the effect of them. After
facing calumny, and triumphantly surmounting an unrelenting
persecution, he retired from office, with clean, though empty
hands, as rich as reputation and an unblemished integrity could
make him.

SOME have plausibly, though erroneously, inferred from the
great extent of his abilities, that his ambition was inordinate.
This is a mistake. Such men, as have a painful conscious
ness, that their stations happen to be far more exalted than
their talents, are generally the most ambitious. HAMILTON, on
the contrary, though he had many competitors, had no rivals ;
for he did not thirst for power, nor would he, as it was well
known, descend to office.. Of course, he suffered no pain

HAMILTON. 289

from envy, when bad men rose, though he felt anxiety for the
publick. He was perfectly content and at ease, in private
life. Of what was he ambitious? Not of wealth — no man
held it cheaper. Was it of popularity ? That weed of the
dunghill, he knew, when rankest, was nearest to withering.
There is no doubt, tkat he desired glory, which to most men
is too inaccessible to be an object of desire ; but, feeling his
own force, and that he was tall enough to reach the top of
Pindus or of Helicon, he longed to deck his brow with the
wreath of immortality. A vulgar ambition could as little
comprehend, as satisfy, his views : he thirsted only for that
fame, which virtue would not blush to confer, nor time to con
vey to the end of his course.

THE only ordinary distinction, to which, we confess, he did
aspire, was military ; and for that, in the event of a foreign
war, he would have been solicitous. He undoubtedly discov
ered the predominance of a soldier's feelings ; and all that is
honour, in the character of a soldier, was at home in his heart.
His early education was in the camp ; there the first fervours
of his genius were poured forth, and his earliest and most cor
dial friendships formed ; there he became enamoured of glory,
and was admitted to her embrace.

THOSE who knew him best, and especially in the army, will
believe, that, if occasions had called him forth, he was qualified,
beyond any man of the age, to display the talents of a great
general.

IT may be very long, before our country will want such
military talents ; it will probably be much longer, before it will
again possess them.

ALAS ! the great man who was, at all times, so much the
ornament of our country, and so exclusively fitted, in its
extremity, to be its champion, is withdrawn to a purer and
more tranquil region. We are left to endless labours and
unavailing regrets.

Such honours Ilion to her hero paid,
And peaceful slept the mighty Hector's shade.
37

290 SKETCH OF HAMILTON.

THE most substantial glory of a country, is in its virtuous
great men : its prosperity will depend on its docility to learn
from their example. That nation is fated to ignominy and
servitude, for which such men have lived in vain. Power
may be seized by a nation, that is yet barbarous ; and wealth
may be enjoyed by one, that it finds, or renders sordid : the one
is the gift and the spoil of accident, and the other is the sport
of power. Both are mutable, and have passed away without
leaving behind them any other memori.l than ruins that
offend taste, and traditions that baffle conjecture. But the
glory of Greece is imperishable, or will last as long as learn
ing itself, which is its monument : it strikes an everlasting root,
and bears perennial blossoms on its grave. The name of
HAMILTON would have honoured Greece, in the age of Aris-
tides. May heaven, the guardian of our liberty, grant, that
our country may be fruitful of HAMILTONS, and faithful to
their glory.

C 291 ]
REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR IN EUROPE.

First published in tlie Repertory, May, 1805.

JL WELVE years ago, the war that was kindled by the
French revolution was represented to be exclusively worthy
of the attention of Americans. While the French were pul
ling down their government, nothing seemed so fine us their
very worst conduct, to the party who were leagued together
to pull down our own. They called our eyes to the banks of
the Rhine, where the battles of liberty, as they were fools
enough to say, were fighting ; and we roasted oxen for joy,
because Pichegru took Amsterdam, and made the Dutch as
free as the West-India negroes.

THIS sort of noise is a good deal hushed, for two reasons :
one is, the jacobins have got their object, and our govern
ment is down; the other is, the mask of French hypocrisy-
has dropped off, or is so torn in their scuffles, that we can
plainly see the knaves' faces of their liberty-loving dema
gogues. French examples are not now quoted, now, when,
they are most instructive, because they really, in some de
gree, alarm and deter the dupes whom they lead : asses trot
the better in dangerous roads, for wearing their blinders.
Hence it is, that our lords and masters of Virginia affect to
dislike all discussions of the- political probabilities of the war,
and to consider our curiosity as useless and badly directed.
Our lazy masters are, in fact, so engrossed with the care of
governing us for their own exclusive benefit, that they have
not much relish for any other reflections ; and, besides all
other considerations, Mr. Jefferson and his cabinet have a
mortal dread of the power of Buonaparte, which has not been
in the least abated by their experienced necessity, since the
purchase of Louisiana, to court and flatter him. They are
quaking with fear that he will require from them more
assistance, than they dare either to eive or refuse him, They

292 REFLECTIONS ON

have yielded the point with regard to the trade with St.
Domingo, with as much poverty of spirit as might be ex
pected ; and our seamen will be whipped and buried in
dungeons, or tucked up at the yard arm, as the great nation
may by its emperour think fit to decree. The trade is not
denied to be lawful, yet its interdiction is better, no doubt
our patriots will say, than a war.

WE have seen, too, how quarrelsome an act Mr. *** was
disposed to get passed for the protection of our seamen, that
is of British seamen, who were to be forcibly protected, when
they had deserted to our vessels.

IN all this, and in every thing else, the power of Buona
parte crosses the Atlantick. It is childish to inquire, what
harm do we suffer by his making himself king of Italy ? We
answer, by his power he makes himself the king of terrours
to Mr. Jefferson ; and if we are not embroiled with England
to please him, it is because, afraid as our brave rulers are of
Buonaparte, they are still more afraid of getting into a war
with England, that would instantly smash their popularity to
atoms.

LET no person that remembers Mr. Madison's famous
commercial resolutions, in which he proposed to fight for
France by a war of regulations, let no such person deny the
effective and dangerous influence of the preponderant power
of France on the peace and safety, the honour, and, let us
add, the honesty of our government. For, be it remembered
also, the ever to be abhorred project of confiscating British
debts grew out of the same passion for France and hostility
to England.

NOR is the loss of that silly fondness a security for spirited
and independent counsels in America. Our rulers are of a
sort and character to act from their fears ; and their fear is a
much more steady cause of action than their love. Of course,
we are to expect, that the vast power of France will not cease
to manifest itself, to the injury of our trade, to the oppression
of our brave seamen, and to the infinite disgrace of the gov
ernment that abandons them.

THE WAR IN EUROPE. 293

LET us then dare to survey this huge Colossus, about
whose legs we have the honour to creep.

THERE was a time, when the people of France were really
infatuated with the notion of republican liberty. They say
themselves, it was a delusion, and has passed away. But it
lasted long enough to break down and destroy every thing
in France that was not military, and by its contagion in Ger
many, Holland, Switzerland, and Italy, to enfeeble and divide
all the force that ought to have resisted France. The con
quests of France have flattered the national vanity, and, by
accumulating the spoils of so many nations, have, in part,
filled up the void that was made by the destruction of com
mercial and manufacturing capital. Instead of the opulence
of the crowded mart or busy workshop, the country was filled
like the camp of Attilaor Tamerlane, with spoils and trophies.
The naval superiority of the British, by destroying their
trade, has contributed to decide and prolong this exclusively
military character of the French.

WE are, then, to view France as a political phenomenon,
not less tremendous by her having renounced every trade
but that of a conqueror, than by her colossal size. Like the
old Romans, and, indeed, like every other nation intoxicated
with a passion for conquest, the French are completely mili
tary, and their ardour is a kind of fanaticism, such as made
the successors of Mahomet the monarchs of the East.

THE Romans, in like manner, contended, for almost five
centuries, with the petty nations of Italy, their equals in
valour, their inferiours only in discipline. In this hardy
school, they were trained for conquest. But, after they had
gained the dominion of Italy, they never again contended
with their equals. The Carthaginians, though sustained for
sixteen years by the transcendent genius of Hannibal, were
almost equally enfeebled by their spirit of commerce and
their spirit of faction. The Macedonians, like the modern
Prussians, had a fine army, a full treasury, and a state of but
moderate extent, hemmed in by jealous, hostile neighbours.
In conquering them and the rest of Greece, the Romans

294 REFLECTIONS ON

found the ^Etolians and some other states ready to accept
chains, and to impose them on their countrymen. The light
of Greece, the most refulgent the world ever saw, was
quenched with its liberty. Egypt was so sunk in vice, that
it fell without a contest. Antiochus the great, king of Syria,
had an infinite number of men, but few soldiers. The glory
and the spoils of his conquest were greater than its difficulty.
Gaul, the modern France, was filled with barbarians, who had
not the sense nor perhaps the power to unite against Cesar,
and they fell in succession. Spain resisted longer and more
desperately, but not as a nation combined to resist an invader,
but by endless partial insurrections to throw off its chains.

THE power of Mithridates was too recently formed, and
composed of states too near barbarism, to contend with Rome ;
ye< for many years he proved her most dreaded foe.

THUS it was, that the chief difficulties in conquering the
old world were really surmounted, before Rome was known
to have formed the design, or, perhaps, was conscious she
had it to undertake.

FRANCE, in like manner, has been for many centuries ex
ercised in arms. She has had to contend with all her neigh
bours, her equals in valour, her inferiours in military institu
tions and spirit. Thus, a nation has been educated for the
conquest of the world. Spain, once her superiour, is now
her vassal. Austria, her rival, is chained to a prison floor by
her hatred of Prussia, her dread of France, and, perhaps, her
still greater dread of Russia. Fear and policy will both
make her subservient to Buonaparte, unless he should prefer
the active assistance of Prussia to that of Austria. He seems
to have the best grounds to expect, that, if Russia should
be his enemy, he will have one of the other two for an ally.
On this supposition, we can scarcely conceive of an efficient
alliance against France on the continent of Europe. While
its numerous states were independent, and the safety of each
was the care of all, the ambition of France was more trouble
some than formidable. In this school of policy and arms,
this gymnasium, in which all strenuously contended and in

THE WAR IN EUROPE. 295

turns excelled, France, like a prize-fighter, acquired the har
diness, the dexterity, and the force, that have made her the
victor. The revolution has suddenly opened her eyes to
contemplate her situation, and all her ardour is awakened by
perceiving, that, already, more than half her ambitious work
is done. Less fighting, less hazard, than her rivalships with
the house of Austria have cost the Bourbons, will make her
mistress of Europe from the Baltick to the Hellespont. With
sixty millions of people in France and its dependencies, half
the population of the Roman empire under Trajan, she has
twice the force. The Russians, like the ancient Parthians,
are her only enemies on land, and they are too distant to be
formidable.

THE other states of Europe, England excepted, are more
than half subdued by their divisions and their fears.

IT is absurd to suppose, that this power, so tremendous to
every lover of his country, will be inert for want of pecuni
ary resources. The Dutch and Italians sow, and the French
reap. Sic vos non -uobis fertia aratra doves. Old Rome, after
the conquest of Macedonia, subsisted for more than a hun
dred years by tributes without taxes. Mahomet, Genghis
Khan, and Tamerlane did not stop to ask their collectors of
taxes, whether they should conquer Asia.

NOR will the people of France grow weary or ashamed of
their yoke, and rise to throw it off: they are nothing, the
army is every thing. Besides, they are really proud of the
glory of their master, and from their very souls rejoice in
the distinction of their chains.

CAN it be, some will say, that the man, who basely fled
from his brave comrades in Egypt, the man red with assassi
nation at Joppa, the obscure Corsican, an emperour only by
his crimes, will be preferred to the Bourbons ? Yes ; the
army prefers him. The revolution, like a whirlwind has
swept all the ncient hierarchy, nobility, and land proprietors
away, and the new race have an interest to maintain the new
establishments of the usurpation. Did the populace of Rome
ever shift their government, because an usurper had obtained

296 REFLECTIONS ON

the people by money or by blood ? No ; as soon as men per*
ceive, that there is a force superiour to their own, they desist
from making any efforts against it : the proud Romans were
as passive in the yoke, as the Dutch are now.

THE destinies of the civilized world, then, obviously depend
on their ability to resist this new Roman domination. Russia
has no fears of being subjugated, and, for that very reason,
will act with less zeal and less faithfulness in what ought to
be the common cause against France. She will pursue the
projects of her ambition, which seek aggrandizement in the
South of Europe, and as a naval power. Hence, it is to be
feared, her coalition with England will not be cordial enough
to be successful : and the only sort of success that is of any
moment in this discussion, is the reduction of the power of
France. Russia aspires to an influence in the German
empire, which cannot fail to alarm and disgust both Prussia
and Austria ; and hence it was, that she lately interfered in
the affair of the German indemnities. She also seeks a foot
ing in the Mediterranean, preparatory to her designs against
the Turks. It was on this account she wished to occupy
Malta, and that she now fills Corfu with her troops. These
are selfish and dangerous schemes, which England cannot
second or approve.

IF, nevertheless, Russia should obtain of Prussia and Aus
tria, that the one should be neutral, and the other an associ
ate against France, a continental war is to be expected. In
case English money and an English army should aid the
allies, Buonaparte would find his supremacy again in hazard.

BUT England, the great adversary of France, cannot be-
eome a military nation, in the sense that the French are, nor,
it is to be feared, in the degree that the crisis absolutely
requires she should. Her commerce binds her in golden
fetters. An artisan or a farmer is worth, probably, one hun
dred pounds sterling to the nation. To make such men
soldiers, great bounties must be paid, and great sacrifices
suffered. To feed and provide an English army, is also very
expensive j want, and military fanaticism crowd the ranks

THE WAR IX EUROPE. 297

of Buonaparte, and their enemies or their allies provide their
subsistence. Unfortunately too, Mr. Pitt yielded to the pressure
of the moment, and accepted the delusive services of his half
million of volunteers. It is impossible he should think these
men of buckram fit to withstand the men of steel, if they should
invade the island.

IN times of great danger, popular notions are often worse
than frivolous. The volunteer force is factious, expensive, and
useless, as every soldier knows. But it is worse. It has made
the nation unmanageable, puffed them up with a vain depen
dence on the shew of force, a shew as empty as that of the
army of Croesus, and has made their rulers afraid to impose,
and the people unwilling to bear, the necessary burdens of real
soldiership. The strength of a modern state at war consists
in its soldiers, not in the trappings of the peaceable apprentices,
who are arrayed in scarlet to act the comedy of an army. Eng
land consumes its men and means to act this comedy, and 19
thus chained down to the expense and the despair of a defen
sive system.

HAD she an efficient disposeable army of one hundred thou
sand men, one third of whom could be employed in expeditions,
or. in co-operation with continental allies, the cause of Europe
and of the civilized world would not be quite desperate. If
the enslaved nations would exert half as much force to
recover their liberty, as the French will make them employ
to subjugate the yet unconquered states, the contest against
France might be renewed with hopes of advantage.

LET not the men in power in America deceive themselves.
If Buonaparte prevails, they will be his vassals, even more
signally than they are at present. The trade of this country-
has already twice been made the spoil of France. The inso
lent aggressor is obstructed by the British navy, and not by
his friendship for us, or respect for our rights, from repeating
and extending his rapacity and violence. Least of all is he
restrained by any opinion of the force of our nation, or the
spirit of our government.
38

B

[ 298 ]

CHARACTER OF BRUTUS.
Firtt puHithed In the Repertory, Attgiisf, 1805.

RUTUS killed his benefactor and friend, Cesar, because
Cesar had usurped the sovereign power. Therefore, Brutus
was a patriot, whose character is to be admired, and whose
example should be imitated, as long as republican liberty shall
have a friend or an enemy in the world.

THIS short argument seems to have, hitherto, vindicated
the fame of Brutus from reproach and even from scrutiny ;
yet, perhaps, no character has been more over-rated, and no
example worse applied. He was, no doubt, an excellent scholar
and a complete master, as well as faithful votary of philoso
phy ; but, in action, the impetuous Cassius greatly excelled
him. Cassius alone- of all the conspirators acted with prompt
ness and energy in providing for the war, which, he foresaw,
the death of Cesar would kindle ; Brutus spent his time in
indolence and repining, the dupe of Anthony's arts, or of his
own false estimate of Roman spirit and virtue. The people
had lost a kind master, and they lamented him. Brutus sum
moned them to make efforts and sacrifices, and they viewed his
cause with apathy, his crime with abhorrence.

BEFORE the decisive battle of Philippi, Brutus seems, after
the death of Cassius, to have sunk under the weight of the
sole command. He still had many able officers left, and among
them Messala, one of the first men of that age, so fruitful of
great men ; but Brutus no longer maintained that ascendant over
his army, which talents of the first order maintain every where,
and most signally in the camp and field of battle. It is fairly,
then, to be presumed, that his troops had discovered, that
Brutus, whom they loved and esteemed, was destitute of those
talents ; for he was soon obliged by their clamours, much
against his judgment, and against all prudence and good sense,
to give battle. Thus ended the life of Brutus and the exist
ence of the republick.

CHARACTER OF BRUTUS. 299

WHATEVER doubt there may be of the political and military
capacity of Brutus, there is none concerning his virtue : his
principles of action were the noblest that ancient philosophy
had taught, and his actions were conformed to his principles.
Nevertheless, our admiration of the man ought not to blind
our judgment of the deed, which, though it was the blemish
of his virtue, has shed an unfading splendour on his name.

FOR, though the multitude to the end of time will be open
to flattery, and will joyfully assist their flatterers to become
their tyrants, yet they will never cease to hate tyrants and
tyranny with equal sincerity and vehemence. Hence it is, that
the memory of Brutus, who slew a tyrant, is consecrated as
the champion and martyr of liberty, and will flourish and look
green in declamation, as long as the people are prone to be
lieve, that those are their best friends, who have proved them
selves the greatest enemies of their enemies.

ASK any one man of morals, whether he approves of assas
sination ; he will answer, no. Would you kill your friend and
benefactor ? No. The question is a horrible insult. Would
you practise hypocrisy and smile in his face, while your con
spiracy is ripening, to gain his confidence and to lull him into
security, in order to take away his life ? Every honest man, on
the bare suggestion, feels his blood thicken and stagnate at his
heart. Yet in this picture we see Brutus. It would, perhaps,
be scarcely just to hold him up to abhorrence ; it is, certainly,
monstrous and absurd to exhibit his conduct to admiration.

HE did not strike the tyrant from hatred or ambition : his
motives are admitted to be good ; but was not the action,
nevertheless, bad ?

To kill a tyrant, is as much murder, as to kill any other man.
Besides, Brutus, to extenuate the crime, could have had no
rational hope of putting an end to the tyranny: he had fore
seen and provided nothing to realize it. The conspirators
relied, foolishly enough, on the love of the multitude for li
berty — they loved their safety, their ease, their sports, and their
demagogue favourites a great deal better. They quietly looked
on, as spectators, and left it to the legions of Anthony, and

300 CHARACTER OF BRUTUS.

Octavius, and to those of Syria, Macedonia, and Greece, to
decide, in the field of Philippi, whether there should be a
republick or not. It was, accordingly, decided in favour of an
emperour ; and the people sincerely rejoiced in the political
calm, that restored the games of the circus, and the plenty
of bread.

THOSE, who cannot bring their judgments to condemn the
killing of a tyrant, must nevertheless agree that the blood of
Cesar was unprofitably shed. Liberty gained nothing by it,
and humanity lost a great deal ; for it cost eighteen years of
agitation and civil war, before the ambition of the military and
popular chieftains had expended its means, and the power was
concentred in one man's hands.

SHALL we be told, the example of Brutus is a good one,
because it will never cease to animate the race of tyrant-killers.
But will the fancied ustfulness of assassination overcome our
instinctive sense of its horrour ? Is it to become a part of our
political morals, that the chief of a state is to be stabbed or
poisoned, whenever a fanatick, a malecontent, or a reformer
shall rise up and call him a tyrant ? Then there would be as
little calm in despotism as in liberty.

BUT when has it happened, that the death of a usurper has
restored to the publick liberty its departed life ? Every suc
cessful usurpation creates many competitors for power, and they
successively fall in the struggle. In all this agitation, liberty is
without friends, without resources, and without hope. Blood
enough, and the blood of tyrants too, was shed between the
time of the wars of Marius and the death of Anthony, a
period of about sixty years, to turn a common grist-mill ; yet
the cause of the publick liberty continually grew more and
more desperate. It is not by destroying tyrants, that we are
to extinguish tyranny : nature is not thus to be exhausted of
her power to produce them. The soil of a republick sprouts
with the rankest fertility : it has been sown with dragon's
teeth. To lessen the hopes of usurping demagogues, we
must enlighten, animate, and combine the spirit of freemen ;
we must fortify and guard the constitutional ramparts about

CHARACTER OF BRUTUS. 301

liberty. When its friends become indolent or disheartened, it
is no longer of any importance how long-lived are its ene
mies : they will prove immortal.

NOR will it avail to say, that the famous deed of Brutus
will for ever check the audacity of tyrants. Of all passions
fear is the most cruel. If new tyrants dread other Bruti,
they will more naturally sooth their jealousy by persecutions,
than by the practice of clemency or justice. They will say,
the clemency of Cesar prpved fatal to him. They will aug
ment their force and multiply their precautions ; and their
habitual dread will degenerate into habitual cruelty.

HAVE we not then a right to conclude, that the character
of Brutus is greatly over-rated, and the fashionable approbation
gf his example horribly corrupting and pernicious ?

.302 ]

ON THE PROSPECT

OF

A NEW COALITION AGAINST FRANCE.

First published in the Repertory, October, 1E05.

AT appears probable, that a new coalition is forming against
France, and that Russia, Sweden, and Austria are in alliance
with England. We are told, that a great body of Russians is
moving through Poland, and will be ready to reinforce the
Austrians in season to repel any attack, that the French usur
per, who is accustomed to strike before he threatens, may be
expected to make upon the latter. The struggle for the recove
ry of Italy from the French is to be renewed ; and, instead of
invading England, Buonaparte will have to contend once more
for his crown. The neutrality, if not the co-operation of Prus
sia and Denmark, is foretold.

IT is natural, that the first indications of a powerful confede
racy against France should be interpreted to promise every
thing to Englishmen, weary of the known weight, and dejected
by the prospect of the unknown length, of the contest. Coali
tions ever promise much in their inception ; they usually dis
appoint all in their progress. A single power has generally
proved an over-match for their arms. The honey-moon may,
possibly^ last, till the allies have taken the field and fought the
first battle ; but the good or bad fortune of that baltle is almost
sure to dissolve the ties of their mutual confidence, if not the
bands of that alliance. If defeated, they throw the blame on
one another ; if victorious, they are made envious and jealous
by the allotment of the spoil.

No doubt, Austria will be hearty in the cause, for she will
fight for .her life ; but her very fears may be skilfully used by
Buonaparte to detach her from the confederacy. He may offer
her some Turkish provinces ; he may yield other points of real

NEW COALITION. 303

magnitude, that will give her a temporary security, or the shew
of it, which she may deem preferable to a more hazardous
obstinacy in the contest.

THIS Austria may deem herself almost compelled to prefer,
by an early discovery of the tardiness of the disposition of the
Russian cabinet, and, perhaps, still more emphatically, by the
detection of its immeasurable ambition.

RUSSIA has, probably, no fears of the French, and can have
no hopes of aggrandizement by wresting any thing from them.
Russia will enter the lists, therefore, with very different views,
and infinitely less ardour than Austria : she must engage in the
war from calculation. It may offend her pride, that the French
emperour plays the first part in Europe ; she may dread a
great loss of consideration and political influence, unless she
contends with him ; but her means for a long war are not con
siderable. It may be said, that England is rich, and will supply
the primary means. Large subsidies will, no doubt, invigo
rate and hasten the military operations ot this power ; it is,
nevertheless, a great mistake, to suppose, that a prodigious
expense will not be left, after all the English guineas are count
ed in St. Petersburg, to be defrayed by the Russian govern
ment. These are reasons, therefore, for a natural apprehension,
that the efforts of the Russians will be made upon a less scale,
and with less energy, and continued for a much shorter time,
than any man will prescribe for effecting the only rational
object of a continental war, a reduction of the colossal power
of France. All independent nations must quake within sight
and almost within touch of their fetters, till this is done.

AND, to do it surely, more than one campaign is necessary.
France will assuredly set her foot on the world's neck, if the
force and the spirit do not exist somewhere, to face her in
arms with a steadiness equal to her own ambition. England
alone has that force and spirit ; a confederacy is a rope of
sand, and will break to pieces, or, at least, manifest its total
inefficiency, in a year. But, as soon as the English nation can
be made to view the contest in its true light, and, what is ten
times as much to the purpose, to feel it, as they see it, they

304 XEW COALITION.

will boldly rely on themselves, and cautiously 'ask or take
assistance from their allies. For these allies, the Russians
especially, may claim the partition of Turkey, in recompense
of a longer perseverance. A dismembering ambition would
quench all hope of tranquillity in Europe. It would also inevi
tably dissolve any coalition that could be formed. Neither
Austria nor England would assent, much less assist, to confer
universal empire on Russia.

FRANCE has had time to consolidate her new empire. All
that policy and violence can do, has been done, and all that
arms can do, will be done to maintain her acquisitions. To
maintain them, is, probably, as much a national cause with the
French, as it was with the Romans, to keep Hannibal out of
Rome, after the battle of Cannae. French vanity will not,
therefore, be subdued, it will be irritated and roused by
national losses and by the disgrace of their arms. Buona
parte's own vanity, and that of his nation, would probably
require, that England should be invaded, if the ripening of
the expected coalition should not furnish, perhaps, the occa
sion, and, certainly, the excuse for the abandonment of that
extravagant project. In this view of the matter, the coalition
will prevent more good, than we can imagine it will ever
achieve ; for of all the possibilities of a sfieedy remedy of the
present enormous evils of Europe, by the reduction of the
preponderant power of France, the only one that holds out
any rational promise, is that of the invasion. Two hundred
thousand men landed in England, and the winners of the first
three or four battles, would certainly fall at last, and involve
the imperial usurper in their fall. His boasted glory would
sink even faster than his power. The enslaved nations would
then make haste to break their chains.

BUT supposing no invasion, which, in the event of a ne\r
coalition, is no longer to be supposed, it then becomes impos
sible even to conceive of any remedy, but a late and exceed
ingly gradual one.

To Jight down gigantick France to her former size, so that
other nations may again breathe in safety and independence,

NEW COALITION. 305

can scarcely take less than half a century of prosperous war
fare. These mushroom products of accident, money, or in
trigue, these brittle, ephemeral coalitions are quite inade
quate to the end. While they last, they will cherish false
hopes ; and when they fail, they will engender groundless
fears ; and for the next seven years may prevent the dis
covery, and delay the resort to the only effective resources of
safety. For England alone, we repeat it, is pledged, is pin
ned, and nailed down to the combat. To sit and take blows
is hard, but she still has the privilege, the precious, glorious
privilege the Dutch, Swiss, and Italians have lost, of returning
them. Every war brings its burdens and losses, but this war
brings its terrours too, for it hazards, and will decide upon her
life and honour. The decision cannot be evaded, the contest
cannot even be intermitted, without her ruin. By eighteen
months of treacherous peace, she suffered a greater reduction
of comparative strength, than by eight years of war. Her war
like efforts for this whole century would not impoverish her ; a
delusive calm, called peace, for three years, would put an end
to her efforts for ever. She has men, she has courage, she
has all the means of self-defence ; she wants only that over
powering impression upon her people, that time will make,
though it is not yet made, to have the command of those
means. She must rouse, as Carthage did in the third Punick
war, but not so late. Her Foxes and her Burdetts will be silent,
when the very rabble are convinced, that England cannot exist
at all, unless the power of France be reduced ; that, us long as
she contends for the reduction of that power, she enjoys both
existence and glory. She is, therefore, to choose war, not as
a state preferable to peace, but preferable to the ignominy of
wearing French chains. When these ideas, unfortunately so
well vouched by her situation, are admitted by all men ii» the
nation, (and the time is coming, when they will be irresistible)
every thing in England will become a weapon of wur, and
every man a soldier or sailor to wield it. The minister will
have reason to rely on the &bundaxic£ of resources, .. nd, what
is more to the purpose of the war, on the perseverance and
39

306 NEW COALITION.

patience of the publick. English spirit, thus roused, might
laugh at mercenary coalitions and French menaces. France
can have no commerce ; and a nation of soldiers must thrive
by spoil, and not by manufactures. If, to get fresh spoil, they
enlarge the circle of their depredations, they rouse new ene
mies, and create more zealous coalitions than English guineas
can buy.

THESE opinions will, no doubt, seem extravagant to many
persons ; but the evil of French domination is now of many
years standing : it is not very rational to suppose, that a battle
or a campaign is to cure it. There are many evils, which
attend human life through the entire course of it. Perhaps it
is made, in wisdom, and in mercy too, by the great Ruler of
the universe, the condition of an Englishman's life, that he
shall spend the whole of it in fighting the French ; and if his
sons and his grandsons should think liberty and independence
intolerable on these terms, let them lie down in the dust, in
the peace of slavery, and try to forget their honours and their
ancestors.

307 3 K Library.

Of

THE COMBINED POWERS AND FRANCE,

First published in the Repertory, December, 1805.

JL H E power of France is so tremendously preponderant,
that every friend to the liberty and independence of nations
must wish too see it reduced. If the people of the United
States deserve one half the praise they take to themselves for
good sense, such must be their wish. Men's heads and hearts
must be indeed strangely perverted, if they could have a spe
culative liking to behold one great tyrant set up over all other
nations. To put it to the test, let them ask themselves, how
they would incline, if the question now was, to set up a do-
mestick tyrant over our own. Every lover of liberty and inde
pendence must, therefore, of necessity, be the enemy, as far
as wishing goes, of the French arms in the present great
contest. He will anxiously inquire, is the new coalition likely
to reduce the French power ?

WHEN he reads of three hundred thousand Austrians, two
hundred thousand Russians, and perhaps fifty thousand Hes
sians assembling and marching against Buonaparte, he will be
ready to exclaim, France cannot withstand such a force. For
the first time, the odds of numbers is against her. To this
array of armies we add the Swedes, the English, who are
embarking, it is said, fifty thousand, the Austrians and Hun
garians, who may yet rise en masse to reinforce their em-
perour, and the immense body of Russians, who are kept
ready to enter Germany and Italy. We very soon count up a
million of men on pa}ier, and we feel the inspirations of the
English printers' valour, who, already, consider Buonaparte as
dethroned.

MEN'S wishes are great deceivers. France contains more
millions of men, than Buonaparte can ever think fit to array-
in arms, and he can array as many of them as he may want ;
and as he allows no trade, commerce, or profession, to impede,

308 THE COMBINED POWERS

or for one hour to delay his requisitions ; as France is nothing
but military, and every man a soldier, whenever Buonaparte
has occasion to call and make him such, it is the easiest thing
in the world, for the French to outnumber their enemies in the
field. Add to this, France is as near to Germany, as the greater
part of the subjects of Austria, and more Germans will assist
the French armies, than the armies of Austria. If distance
only be considered, more Frenchmen can be brought to act in
the field, than Austrians, Swedes, or Russians.

ANOTHER consideration, of no little moment, is, that France
is surrounded by states newly conquered from her enemies,
whom she can squeeze, and even crush, without any danger of
resistance. The weight of the war may be thrown upon the
German circles on the left bank of the Rhine, newly annexed
to France, upon Hanover and the German neutral electorates,
upon Spain, Holland, Portugal, and Italy. It will be asked,
will not this mode of overburdening the people, who are told
of their honour and happiness in being annexed to France,
render the French odious, unpopular, and weak in those coun
tries ? The answer is, the French people will see, that their
own burdens are the lighter for their excessive weight on
those wretched vassals. In the war, that ended in 1763, the
great king of Prussia exacted every thing from conquered
Saxony : he would not spare his enemies, because he wished
to spare his subjects. In like manner, the PVench will use
the blood, and sinews, and marrow of the Dutch, Hanove
rians, and Italians, as if they were oxen ; nor will they pro
voke resistance from those wretches, for two reasons ; they
will be watchfully kept down by French soldiers ; and, again
be it noted well, the French have not conquered any country,
without raising to power the base and desperately wicked
among the conquered people, who, of course, are interested
and disposed to keep their fellow countrymen under the yoke
of servitude.

THUS, over and above the gigantick force of France itself, it
is evident, the French can command prodigious resources of
men, money, and every article of use in war, from the late sub-

AND FRANCE. 309

jects of her enemies. She no sooner overpowers one enemy,
than she uses and consumes his force in conquering another.

IF we consider the vast extent and unexhausted fertility of
the French territory, including the dependencies of France,
we cannot doubt, that means enough of every sort exist ; and,
moreover, we can doubt us little, that the government is the
most formidable despotism existing on the face of the earth,
and can draw forth those means. Of men and warlike re
sources, then, France has enough.

IT is, perhaps, of the nature of despotism, to contract early
infirmities. It is a giant, whose first energies are augmented,
yet wasted by frenzy. It is a torrent from the hills, that nothing
can resist ; yet it, soon scoops for itself a channel, wide enough,
indeed, to display its ravages, but deep enough to confine them.
A tyrant cannot reign and oppress by his single force ; he must
really interest, and interest prodigiously, a sufficient number
of subordinate tyrants in the duration of his power. As he will
select these, because he knows them to possess an extraordi
nary share of ability to serve him, these first appointments will
give ail imaginable efficacy to his authority. In reward for serv
ing him, he must allow them to serve themselves ; he must
wink at their abuses and exactions. But after the lapse of one
generation, these abuses become the inheritable rights of the
first set of subordinate agents or their descendants ; the state
is exhausted and consumed by abuses, which time has made
inveterate, and which the new-made great have an interest in
aggravating. The monster, despotism, whose youth was pass
ed in riot, is then crippled by the gout, and is equally disabled
from enduring either labours or remedies. Nothing can be
more certain, than that free states are the most capable of
energy.

BUT a youthful tyrant has a sort of preternatural 'strength,
that is truly formidable — such is Buonaparte's. France has
thrown off the incumbrances of ranks and orders, of laws and
religion, and seemed to awake at once from the sleep of ages.
Every thing that is genius has been roused, by seeing all that
is alluring in power and wealth brought within its reach. All

310 THE COMBINED POWERS

France has teemed with ambition, like the earth in seed time.
These circumstances have imparted to the French character,
always highly susceptible, a most extraordinary energy. And
if any persons, wedded to a favourite system, shall please to
say, that, as the hope of liberty is now extinguished, the French
are no longer ardent enthusiasts, but reluctant slaves, let them
be told, that the ardour for glory remains, though the passion
for liberty is no more. The people are now engaged in a more
intelligible, and, be it added, a more enchanting pursuit. They
believe, that they know how to beat their enemies ; and that
they do not know how to prevent or remedy the oppressions
of their rulers. It will be conceded, also, that the revolution
has brought forward the ablest generals, and that Buonaparte
has employed them.

ADMITTING, then, that the French armies are numerous
enough, that they are well commanded, and that the soldiers
have the double advantage of strict discipline and actual service,
it is not easy to disceni the grounds, on which the English
seem so confidently to rely, that the French will be beaten.
The Austrians and Russians are, no doubt, good soldiers ; not
better, however, than the French. It is to be feared, the coa
lition will be defeated in its first attempts.* The great distance
of the Russian dominions, and the deficiency of pecuniary
means scarcely allow us to expect, that Russia will persevere
long, in a very unhopeful contest. Austria, without Russia,
is certainly unequal to the contest. It is probable, that much
is expected from the first impression of the arms of the coa
lesced powers ; if that expectation should fail, we cannot see
any motives Russia has for fighting on, campaign after cam
paign, in case France should hold out to resist.

AND is there the least reason to suppose, France will not hold
out to resist many years ? The glory of France is the cause of
all Frenchmen — pity it is, we pence-saving Americans had not

* Injustice to the writer of these speculations, it must be remarked, that they were pen
ned at least ten days before the report arrived of the capture of thirty thousand Austrian*.

Note of the Newspaper Etiif*r.

AND FRANCE, 311

a small spice of their character. They will suffer much, and
attempt every thing, sooner than permit their enemies to
triumph over them : defeats, by irritating their vanity, will
rouse their spirit.

WE shall be told in reply, it is only the splendour of success,
that attaches the French to the fortune of Buonaparte. But
they are really, in their inmost souls, proud of that success.
Besides, let it be remembered, every thing that is now exalted
in France would be brought low again, by the return of the
Bourbons : there is nothing left in church or state, that is not the
work of the revolution. The Bourbons might pardon rebels
and usurpers ; but could they employ them all, or trust any of
them ? Could they refuse to employ, or trust the emigrant
nobility, who have borne exile and poverty with them ? Yet
this must be refused, or the nobles and princes of the new
order of things must step down again to the democratick floor.
Probably a million of active high-spirited men in France, now
in some office, would hazard life, and, perhaps, scorn it as a con
dition of disgrace, sooner than restore the Bourbons.

WHERE, then, is the reason to suppose, that France will not
make efforts, endure reverses, and even create another tyrant,
in case Buonaparte should fall in battle, or die in his bed?
Where is the country in Europe, that has so little to fear from
division within, as France ? as France, we say, still smarting
with the sense, and, in case of Buonaparte's death, ready to
quake with the dread, of the curse of civil war ?

THE French despotism, we greatly fear, will prove a Colos
sus of iron, which this coalition will be unable to hew down
with the sword, or to lift from its place. Another revolution,
like an earthquake, might break its limbs ; and time will slowly
corrode it with rust : in fifty years it may be still hateful to its
neighbours, and dreadful only to Frenchmen. We have not
the most to hope from the powers, that are nearest its own
size ; but from that, which has the capacity to maintain the
longest resistance : we mean England. For the reasons we
have before assigned, it is our belief, the French despotism will
never be more formidable than it is now : if it should not finish

312 THE COMBINED POWERS %

its conquering work, while Buonaparte lives, it will never be
finished. This is clear, if it cannot conquer England, it will
not conquer the world. Thus we are brought to the question,
so perpetually recurring to our anxiety, so awfully interesting
to every civilized nation in the world, will France be able to
conquer England?

IT is commonly said, if the British navy did not protect that
island, it would be certainly conquered. This is no part of our
creed. A state containing fifteen or sixteen millions of souls
is not to be conquered, unless the government is of a sort to
breed factions, and one of them joins the foreign enemy to
enslave the state. There is every appearance, that the French
faction in England, which in the beginning of the revolution
was so clamorous and formidable, is now equally destitute of
pretext, and of means of mischief. If the British channel
should be filled with gravel, and raked, and hardened,, like a
turnpike, the English would become .more military, and have
to fight many desperate battles for their liberty, which, though
they should loose those battles, they would ultimately preserve.
Certainly, there is no want of physical force, no deficiency of
courage to maintain it, even if the coast of Brittany touched the
coast of Essex.

WITH these opinions it follows, that the threatened invasion
was one of the most desirable events: it afforded the only
certain and near prospect of the disgrace and overthrow of the
French power. If the coalition really hindered the invasion,
it has done England an injury, which it will never repair. But,
as the attempt was long delayed, and the conduct of Austria
and Russia was so ostentatiously complained of for hindering
its execution, there is great reason to believe, there was no
serious intention to make it.

GREAT BRITAIN, now, can expect no such hopeful oppor
tunity to cripple her adversary, as long as the coalition lasts :
her hopes are rested on the military operations of the coalesced
powers. This is one of the serious evils of that coalition.
Englishmen are, unhappily, made to depend on the efforts of
Russians and Austrians, which we apprehend (and we huve
taken some pains to explain the grounds of our apprehensions)

AND FRANCE. 313

will ultimately fail of their object. They depend too much on
others, too little on themselves. Should Russia find some
ambitious reasons for deserting the alliance, Austria must be
come a vassal of France. England must then face her adver
sary alone, with his insolence and means augmented, and weari
ness and despair pervading every English heart. Then, per
haps, she would think herself obliged to make peace. Thus
the tired traveller, benumbed with cold, grows drowsy and sits
down to rest — .he sleeps, to wake no more. England would be
more certainly ruined by peace, than Buonaparte by the inva
sion. If, instead of using her arms, she trusts a second time
to her .enemy's moderation, he will never permit her to resume
them. A peace by England, after the defeat of the new coali
tion, will give to France, an unlimited command of means of
every sort. The Persian kings did not encourage commerce,
but the Phoenicians, Rhodians, and people of Cyprus did, and,
of course, the king of Persia could command the sea. Tribu
tary Europe would furnish treasure to build fleets ; and the
whole coast from the Baltick to the Adriatick would supply
seamen. We Americans are already advised to interdict the
manufactures of England ; and France will oblige every other
country to do it. While the war lasts, necessity is stronger
than even French despotism : all Europe, and even France
herself, consumes British goods ; but peace would restore to
Buonaparte the power to shut all the ports of Europe against
England.

WHAT, then, are we to think of the coalition, as it affects
England, but that it will deceive her hopes and aggravate her
embarrassments ? Standing alone, and depending solely on her
self, she is invincible. It is in her power without any material
diminution of her wealth, and with a diminished hazard of her
safety, to fight France, till French despotism becomes wasted
with its vices and decrepid with age ; till it loses much of its
impetuosity, and employs half its force in cjuelling insurrec
tions ; till the legion of honour shall create one emperour, the
army of the Rhine a second, and the army of Italy a third.
40

. & 314 3

THE SUCCESSES OF BUONAPARTE.

First published in the Repcttonj, Manh, 1806.

A II E rapid and decisive successes of Buonaparte have infla
ted the ignorant rabble of our democrats with admiration, and
iilled every reflecting- mind with astonishment and terrour.
The means, that most men deemed adequate to the reduction
of his power, have failed of their effect, and have gone to swell
the Colossal mass that oppresses Europe : his foes are become
his satellites. Austria, the German states, Prussia, Naples,
and perhaps Sweden, seem to have been fated, like comets, to
a shock with the sun, not to thrust him from his orb, but to
supply his waste of elemental fire. Buonaparte not only sees
the prowess of Europe at his feet, but all its force and treasure
in his hands. We except Russia and England. But Russia
is one of those comets on its excursion into the void regions
of space, and is already dim in the political sky ; England pas
ses, like Mercury, a dark spot over the sun's disk ; and to Buon
aparte himself, she seems, like the moon, to intercept his
rays. He cannot endure to see her so near his splendour,
without being dazzled or consumed by it.

HE wants nothing but the British navy, to realize the most
extravagant schemes of his ambition. A war, that should
give him possession of it, or a peace, like the last, that should
humble England, and withdraw her navy from any further
opposition to his arms, would give the civilized world a mas
ter. All the French, and, of course, all our loyal democrats
have affected to treat that apprehension as chimerical. Yet
who, even among those whom faction has made blind, could
refuse to see, that the transfer of the British navy to France,
would irreversibly fix the long-depending destiny of mankind,
to bear the weight and ignominy of a new Roman domi
nation.

WE may say the aggravated weight, for Rome preserved
her morals, till she had achieved her conquests ; France be-

BUOXAPARTE'S SUCCESSES. 315

gins her career, as deeply corrupt as Rome ended it. The
Roman republick, after having grown to a gigantick stature
from its soundness, rotted when it died ; but that of France,
surviving the principles, and at length the name of a repub
lick, has drawn aliment from disease, and we of this genera
tion have seen it crawl, like some portentous serpent from a
tomb, glistening and bloated with venom from its loathsome
banquet. France has owed the progress of her arms to the
prevalence of her vices. These were the causes of the revo
lution ; and the revolution has, in turn, made these the instru
ments of French aggrandizement. By the persecution of all
that was virtue, the leaders gave encouragement to all that
was vice ; and, thus, they not only acquired the power to spend
the nation's last shilling, but imparted to the rabble all the
ardour of enthusiasm, and all the energies, that the love of
novelty, of plunder, and of vengeance could inspire. The
means they commanded were not such as arise from the just
and orderly government of a state, but from its dissolution.
The priests, the rich, and the nobles, were offered as human
sacrifices on the altar of the revolution, and still more emphati
cally of French ambition.

THUS France, like Polypheme in his cave, grew fat with
carnage. Other states could not, without submitting to a like
revolution, oppose her with equal arms. So far from it, they
found, that all those, whom vice and want had made the ene
mies of the laws of their country, were banded together as the
friends of France.

THUS it was, that the French armies no sooner entered
Italy, than they arrayed in arms an Italian rabble, to hold all
those, who had any thing to lose, in fear and inactivity, till
they could be regularly plundered. The leaders of this rab
ble were invested with the mock dignities of the Cisalpine
government. The like was done in Holland and Switzer
land.

THE new yoke, therefore, which the abject nations are so
near taking on their necks, cannot be light. That France
may rule every where, the worst of men must be permitted

316 BUONAPARTE'S SUCCESSES.

every where to rule in the worst of ways. The Roman yoke
was iron, and it crushed, as well as wearied the provinces ;
but the domination of culprits and outlaws, claiming much for
themselves, and exacting more for their masters in France,
will place the people between the upper and the nether mill
stone.

IF the miserable dupes of France, so loyal to the commands
of her envoy, can wish destruction to the British navy, and
can really think American liberty the safer for its future
tenure by the good pleasure of Buonaparte, such men are cer
tainly fitter subjects for medicine than argument : where such
sentiments do not spring from the rottenness of the heart,
they must escape through some crack in the brain.

THERE was a time, when the infatuation in favour of France
was a popular malady. If that time has so far passed over,
that men can either think or feel as Americans ought, it must
be apparent, that Buonaparte wants but little, and is enraged
that he so long wants that little, to be the world's master.
Yet, at this awful crisis, when the British navy alone prevents
his final success, we of the United States come forward, with
an ostentation of hostility to England, to annoy her with non-
intercourse laws. Are we determined to leave nothing to
chance, but to volunteer our industry in forging our chains ?

C sir 3

DANGEROUS POWER OF FRANCE. N°. 1.

First pubhslicd in t/ie Rc/iertory, May, 1806.

A H E political sky has seldom remained long unclouded ;
but it may be doubted, whether it was ever charged with a
blacker tempest, than that we have lately seen burst upon Eu
rope. France has accomplished, in twelve years, as much as
Rome did in five hundred. The Samnites, who occupied a
little province, that is now a part of the kingdom of Naples,
resisted the Roman arms for half a century ; and it was not till
after four and twenty Roman triumphs, and twice that number
of pitched battles, that they were subdued.

KING Pyrrhus landed in Italy too late, after the Samnites
had lost their spirit no less than their force. He proved an
enemy worthy of Roman discipline and courage, yet he was
unsuccessful.

THE Romans, after five hundred years of incessant war with
the petty nations around them, at length aspired to extend
their dominion beyond the bounds of Italy. First Sicily and
then Spain were disputed, in arms, M'ith the Carthaginians.
Fifty years were passed in battles and alarms, before this great
controversy was decided in favour of Rome.

WHEN Carthage had fallen, Greece, the mistress of Rome
in arts, her rival in arms and renown, fell an almost unresist
ing prey to Roman ambition. She fell witn all her confederated
republicks, a* ours will certainly fall, if France should continue
to wield our factions, and our factions to dispose' of our govern
ment ; for factions in a democracy are sincere only in their
hatred arid fear of each other. Whether the Jeffersons and
Madisons stand or fall, our rulers can have no patriotism.
Their emulation is too fierce, and their objects of ambition too
fugitive, and too personal, to allow them to take the views, still
less to cherish the sentiments of statesmen. Old Rome had

318 DANGEROUS POWER

patriots, but \vho would expect to find them in the amphi
theatre among the gladiators ? Those who love power, will
seek it in the contests of party. The lovers of their country
will be found, nursing their griefs and their despair, among
the discarded disciples of Washington. To return from this
seeming digression, Rome availed herself of the divisions of
the Grecian republicks to subjugate them all. Affecting a
zeal for their liberty, she offered her alliance ; and the allies of
Rome, like those of France, were her SLAVES. The Greeks
joyfully aided Rome to conquer Macedonia ; and Philip, the
Macedonian king, was employed against Antiochus, called the
great, the Syrian monarch. Egypt was too base to make any
resistance, but submitted to tribute, as quietly as we do.

THUS, every independent republickand powerful prince fell
a prey to Rome. Beyond the Euphrates, the Parthians, at
length, formed a mighty empire, which the distance and the
deserts rendered, like the modern Russia, inaccessible to the
Roman arms. It was remarkable, that Rome seldom had more
than one enemy to fight at a time : they fell in succession ;
and their servitude was concealed, though it was embittered
by the title of allies.

TRANCE has achieved her purpose — the struggles of liberty
are over ; and the continental nations of Europe are now sleep
ing in their chains.

IF France possessed the British navy, those chains would be
adamant, which no human force could break. French tyranny,
like the great dragon, would have wings, and the remotest
regions of the civilized world would be near enough to catch
pestilence from his breath. Yet we are infatuated enough to
think America a hiding place for liberty, where her assassins
will not seek her life ; or an impregnable fortress that would
protect it.

ON what reasonable foundation do these presumptuous ex
pectations rest ? When France is master of "both land and sea,
will distance preserve us ? With eight hundred ships in the
department of the Thames, distance would be nothing to Buo
naparte. He could transport an army of sixty thousand men

OF FRANCE. 319

to occupy New-York, which could not make one hour's resist
ance. He could transport them with more expedition and ease,
than Mr. Jefferson could assemble our STANDING ARMY of
two regiments from the frontiers, to oppose them. Yet this
standing army-, so potent to command the types, the exclama
tions, and the silly fears of the democrats, though it assisted as
a bug-bear to make Mr. Jefferson president, would no better
protect his house, at Monticello, from a French squadron of
horse, than the army of the imperial Virginia formerly defend
ed its assembly from colonel Tarleton.

BUT our myriads of militia might defy the world in arms.
Excellent hopes these ! When Austria, in vain, opposes two
hundred thousand veterans to the progress of Buonaparte ;
when Russia is repelled in the pitched battle of Austerlitz ;
when Prussia, with its armies complete in numbers and dis
cipline, stands still, not daring to stir, and waiting to acknow
ledge Buonaparte conqueror ; or, to come more plainly to the
point, when we see half a million of English volunteers, as for
midable and as stiff, in buckram, as it is in the power of tailors to
make uniforms, parading the coasts of Sussex, Essex, and Kent,
and yet trusting only to the vigilance of the British navy to hinder
the French from crossing the channel ; surely, when we see
these things, we must be unwilling to reflect, or utterly incapa
ble of reflection, if we can suppose, that the array of the militia
in the secretary's office would transplant fear from Mr. Jeffer
son's bosom into Buonaparte's.

To say nothing of the improbability of the militia's obeying
the call for actual service, or, if they should appear promptly
and in sufficient numbers, of the impossibility of detaining
them in service long enough to make their arms of the least
imaginable use, direful experience has at length instructed
nations, that, when they are in danger, they are to be preserved
from it by their real soldiers. These are made, not in a tailor's
shop, by facing blue cloth with red or yellow, but by learning
in the field that subordination of mind, that will make men do,
and insure their doing all that men possibly can d».

320 DANGEROUS POWER

OLD Rome did not out-number her enemies. Two legions,
each of less than six thousand men, and as many of the Latin
or other Italian allies made a complete consular army. Such
an army routed the numberless forces of Mithridates and An-
tiochus. It cost the Romans more exertions to subdue Perseus,
king of Macedon, than to conquer all the East : his phalanx, of
sixteen thousand men, was harder to break than all .the millions
of militia of the other successors of Alexander. Rome, by the
perfection of her discipline, became mistress of the world.

WOULD Buonaparte calculate on the vigour of our govern
ment, as an insuperable obstacle to his military attempt on the
United States ? Would the congress majority, like a Roman
senate, create means and employ them, with a spirit that would
prefer death to servitude or tribute ? The French Hannibal,
surely, with our fifteen millions of tribute money already in
his treasury, would have no discouraging fear of this sort.
When he reads our treaty with Tripoli, by which it appears,
that we chose tribute, when victory was within our reach ; when
he sees that the bey of Tunis presumes to say, by his minis
ter at Washington, pay or fight, what can Buonaparte conclude,
but that honour is a name, and in America an empty one ; and
that our national spirit can never be roused to a higher pitch,
than to make a calculation. With us honour is a coin, whose
very baseness confines it at home for a currency. Such a peo
ple, he will say, are degraded, before they are subdued. They
are too abject to be classed or employed among my martial
slaves. Let them toil to feed their masters, and to replenish
my treasury with tribute.

Is there a spirit in our people, that would supply the want
of it in our rulers ? Our total impreparedness, both by land and
sea, to make even the shew of resistance against an attack, is,
certainly, not from the want of military means in the United
Stales, but from a dread of the loss of popularity, if they should
call them forth.

WHY is it unpopular ? Because the progress of French,
domination is not seen at all, or is seen with a fatal compla
cency ; because we love our money better than our country ;

OF FRANCE. 321

because we enjoy our ease almost as much as we love our
money ; and because, by shutting our eyes to our publick
dangers, we escape the insupportable terrour of their approach,
and the toils of an efficient preparation to resist them.

IT is a thing incomprehensible, that even the childish bab
ble of the Chronicle is not dumb. Admitting the stupidity,
admitting the baseness of the democrats, yet, without admit
ting that they are both stupid and base in a miraculous degree,
it is unaccountable, that they should not see, in the victories of
Buonaparte, the stride, and almost feel the gripe of a master.
If a storm should sink, or a fire-ship burn the British navy,
we should feel that gripe in a month : general Turreau would
quietly exercise all the authorities at Washington. Consider
ing how tamely we give up our millions, while that navy still
renders America inaccessible to France, is any man alive so
absurd as to suppose, that our subjugation to French despotism
would cost the great nation a single flask of powder ? Take
away the British navy, or give it to France, and we free Ame
ricans, so valiant of tongue, tie up in our stalls, as tamely as
our oxen. The pen of Talleyrand would be found a sharper
weapon than general ***'s sword. It is preposterous to suppose,
that a military resistance to France would be attempted. Her
faction in this country would revive the clubs and the maxims
of 1794; and Genet would again summon the enemies of
British influence to rally under his banner. We should be
called the allies of France, and our loyal addresses would ac
company our tribute to conciliate the friendship of the great
nation, and to claim a share in its glories. The men, who
could be nothing without France, would be invested with the
titles and powers of magistracy ; and property would be made
to shift hands, till it rested with those, who would be really
interested to support France, that France might support them
in keeping it. Thus, she would avoid the odium of a violent
revolution, and yet would reap all the advantage of it, to rivet
our dependence on her power. The distance of the Roman
provinces, at length, favoured their emancipation from her
41

322 DANGEROUS POWER

yoke ; but with the sole possession of a navy, the trans- Atlantick
provinces of France would not be distant.

WITH these irrefragable proofs of the fatal certainty, with
which the power of France would reach us, and of the unre
sisting tameness, Avith which we should endure it, if France
should ruin the British naval power, what comments shall we
make on the sense or spirit of the non-importation project of
congress, which, though ineffectual for its purpose, is intended
to impair the force and resources of that .navy ? How deep
and considerate will be our scorn and execration of the Arm
strongs, and Livingstons, and Munroes, who, to make their
flattery welcome to a tyrant's ear, have blended it with Ameri
can invectives against that navy. We seem to be emulous of
the spirit of slavery, before we descend to its condition ; as if
we were resolved to merit their contempt, by an earlier claim,
and even by a juster title, than their yoke ; for, as long as the
British navy may triumph, that yoke is not inevitable.

THE most successful way to prevent our servitude, is faith
fully to expose our dangers. So far as our fate may depend
on our wisdom or our choice, it is proper to call the attention
of our citizens to the fact, that Buonaparte, though he has
done much, has done it in vain, unless he can do one thing
more. Give him the British" navy, and he will govern the
United States as absolutely, and, certainly, with as little mercy,
us if our territory were a French department, and actually lay
between the Seine and the Loire. Let our scribblers, then,
extol the long-foreseeing wisdom of the Jeffersonian adminis
tration. Let them boast of their devotedness to the cause of
the people. The man, whose chief merit is grounded on his
having penned the declaration of independence, has done more
than any other man living to undo it. He has made conven
tions to pour the fulness of our treasury into the coffers of
Buonaparte ; he has dictated laws in aid of, and to carry into
effect, French authority over the blacks of St. Domingo — a
degree of servile condescension beneath the independent spirit
of those blacks ; and now his minions in congress have begun
a warfare against the British trade, as if, without our own

OF FRANCE. 323

active co-operation to cripple the maritime resources of Eng
land, Buonaparte might meet with too great obstruction and
delay in subverting the independence and liberty of our
country.

IF we love our country as we ought, we cannot but wish,
that the conquered nations of Europe may break their chains ;
we cannot but wish, that Great Britain may courageously and
triumphantly maintain her independence against France. But
on this point what are we to expect ? A military opposition on
the continent of Europe has proved unavailing. Will France,
now mistress of the land, become mistress of the sea also,
and establish her iron domination over the civilized world ?
This is'a question of life or death to American independence,
and the awful decision is near.

DANGEROUS POWER OF FRANCE,
N°. II.

IT is a subject of fearful curiosity, to inquire into the causes,
which have so rapidly conducted France to the conquest of the
continental part of Europe. By carefully tracing their opera
tion, we may be the better enabled to calculate the chances of
her triumph over England, and, of necessary consequence,
over America.

IT was a long time the fashion, to ascribe French victories
to the republican fanaticism of her citizens. When France
ceased to be republican in name, and it was only in name that
she ever was republican, the superiour personal bravery of the
French soldiers, and the superiour genius of Buonaparte were
deemed to be the two adequate causes of her triumphs.

THERE is, probably, little ground for these opinions ; or the
influence of these causes is much over-rated. The body of
American democrats are, no doubt, the greatest political
bigots in the universe : they are accustomed to believe, that

324 DANGEROUS POWER

no tenets can be true or wise, but their own. That all power
is derived from the people, and should be exercised for their
benefit, is a principle, of which they fancy the world was
ignorant, till it was discovered in the course of our revolution.
Considering themselves the sole depositaries of political truth ;
having in their hands her casket, where she keeps liberty, the
most precious of her jewels, they think our country is entitled
to be not a little vain of the office. They feel, too, as if all
patriotick merit consists in propagating their principles through
the world with a rage of proselytism. They would rejoice, if
not only France, but the grand Turk, arid the dey of Algiers
should gather their unlettered rabble into primary assemblies,
and make them swear, with all the zeal and sincerity of opium
and brandy, to maintain the rights of man with their daggers
and their pikes.

ACCORDINGLY, when France said, and sung, and swore the
words of their republican creed, they were sure the grovelling
world was very near being hoisted from its centre : it would
be launched into the sky, and glitter among the brightest of
the stars. The reign of perfectibility was beginning : man, so
long a reptile, trodden in the mire, was rising to over-top the
tallest of the seraphs. Their teeming fancies had made a
creation of their own, and lighted it with a new sunshine.
Above all things, it delighted their hearts, and seemed to
realize all their hopes, to see the low vulgar, the squalid hosts
of vice and ignorance, issue from the opening cellars of the
Fauxbourg of St. Antoine, and from the jails, to exercise the
sovereignty of the fieojile, by a signal vengeance on the magis
trates, their enemies. They were sure the structure of society
must have risen, when they saw its low foundations already
higher than its roof. It was not long, before this rabble army
was arrayed as a body of Marseilles patriots, and as a part of
the national guards. The splendid virtues of France were
attributed to the exalted heroism of these men, who, it was
said, fought well, not because they were soldiers, but because
they were citizens. More than a million of the grown people
of America believed, that the liberty-loving passion of French-

OF FRANCE. 325

men made them an overmatch for the disciplined mercenaries
of Austria and Prussia ; and that the citizens were the better
for their ignorance of discipline. The French generals were
not the dupes of our silly opinions : they drilled and jiunished
their citizens, till they would stand fire and push bayonet ; and
if they would not, they shot them.

THE notion, that the political opinions of the common men
will make them any better soldiers, is strangely absurd : they
are more likely to effect a mutiny, than a triumph. Men may
fancy they are soldiers ; but they are not really such, until dis
cipline and habit have new-moulded their thoughts and incli
nations. The reviews of peaceable tradesmen are no more,
than the solemn foppery of a pantomime, acted in the open air,
instead of the theatre. We would not be understood to say,
that the militia has not both its merit and its use — both, we
confess, are great ; but we do say, that their proper use is not
to face a veteran enemy. It is, indeed, very possible, that poli
tical enthusiasm, as well as religious fanaticism, may inspire
a sudden fury into the bosoms of a raw, undisciplined multi
tude ; but a veteran corps would, surely, defeat such a multi
tude.

IF the inhabitants of France ever felt the republican enthu
siasm, which is, indeed, very .uestionable, there is not much
reason to believe, that it contributed to fill the ranks of their
own army, or to make those of their enemy give way. Expe
rience, which brings plausible theories to the test, and a correct
knowledge of human nature, have abundantly confuted the
notion, that the common men are the better soldiers for the
soundness of their logick or their politicks. Men are very
much alike, in all the European countries, in -respect to their
capacity of being trained for war. When so trained, the dif
ference between two hostile armies, of equal numbers, will
be found to lie in the talents of their subaltern officers and prin
cipal commanders.

COMMON soldiers are soon trained ; but it is the work of art
and time, to form officers. There is not the least reason in
the world to suppose, that the Austrians or Russians are infe-

326 DANGEROUS POWER

riour to the French soldiers in steady, persevering valour ;
but there is ample evidence of the superiority of the French
officers over those of their enemies. War has become, indeed
it ever was, among civilized nations, a science. It excites and
employs the utmost vigour and extent of human intellect.
Though it is a science, it is such only for the officers, not for
the common men. For two centuries past, France has devoted
more attention and more money to the perfection of this science,
than all the rest of Europe. Louis XIV. established such
military schools, as the great Cyrus would have desired for the
education of the officers of that army, that achieved for him
the conquest of Asia. Buonaparte and Moreau, both undoubt
edly great generals, are indebted for their triumphs to these
schools. It is often said, the common men will dare to do,
whatever their officers will lead them on to do. It is no less
proper to say, the officers will seldom flinch from leading the
men, if they but know how to lead them.

NOTHING is more certain, than that the military institutions
of France supplied the first revolutionary armies with an infi
nite number of accomplished young officers, who glowed with
impatience to gain glory and promotion in that profession,
which had, from their infancy, engrossed their thoughts and
kindled all their passions. The revolution furnished only
sparks, and not the fuel for their combustion.

NOR is there the least reason to pretend, that the first French
armies were composed of raw recruits. An immense standing
army was maintained : and when it is considered, that, on the
side of the Low Countries, and on the Rhine, France guarded
what has been emphatically called her iron frontier, with a
double row of fortified towns, and that every one of these was
occupied by a veteran garrison, that would figure as a respec
table American army, we see plainly, that France possessed
every advantage for success in war, from the very first day of
her military operations.

THE democrats, to a man, believe, that France was entirely
defenceless, when the " coalition of desfiots" secretly entered
into the treaties of Pilnitz and Pavia for her dismemberment.

OF FRANCE. 327

Those treaties, it has been a thousand times proved, are forge
ries. Austria was taken by surprise : the emperour Joseph
had levelled the ramparts of his towns in the Netherlands,
Luxembourg excepted ; and his troops in that country were no
more than a feeble corps of observation. The Austrians had
a larger proportion of raw recruits in their armies, than the
French.

BE it remembered, too, that the revolution supplied the
French with an unexhausted superfluity of men and means,
that no regular government in the world could countervail.
That man must be strangely disordered in mind, who can now
look back on French affairs, and say, that the revolutionary
leaders, possessing such means, left any option to the govern
ments of England or Austria to remain at peace. As well
might they say, when a whole street is burning, that a man,
by sitting calm in his elbow chair, might save his house from
the flames. The English government, in particular, was near
the scene, and could not see the revolution, like Etna, vomit
fire, without some natural fears and some prudent measures
of precaution. Who is now ignorant, that Brissot, and Barras,
and Danton, and Robespiere would choose to understand those
fears and those precautions, as signs of the inveterate hostility
of kings to the French liberty. If the English could have
shunned the war in February 1793, it would have been forced
upon them before June.

IT is childish prattle, to charge the enemies of France with
the commencement of the war. The nature of the revolution
was war against mankind. Its vital principle was a burning
passion for power, within the state ; and, when they had gained
that, to establish by arms the power of France over every other
state. Why is the vulture carnivorous ? Why does not the
tiger of Bengal eat grass? We might, with as much good
sense, inquire, why does not the torrent stay upon the hills ?
Why are the collected waters of the revolutionary storm pre
cipitated from the height of the Alps, to desolate the plains,
and to bury men, and their labours, under masses of barrenness
and ruin ?

328 DANGEROUS POWER

THE military means of Austria were stinted ; those of France
unlimited. In almost every battle the French had the advan
tage. The officers, even the subalterns, had been educated so
as to qualify them to be generals ; the generals were fit for
nothing else : they understood their trade, and aspired to no
other sort of distinction. The French, always well commanded
by their officers, well supplied by their enemies countries,
which they ravaged, have rapidly overrun all Europe.

ANOTHER cause of the French superiority, and which has
grown out of the real superiority of their military science, is to
be found in the excellence of their artillery. The number,
and the manageableness of the French field artillery, must have
given them a decisive advantage over the Russians in the late
battle of Austeriitz. It is not to be supposed, that the Russians
have equally improved their artillery ; nor, if they had, would
they have encumbered their march of eight hundred leagues,
especially when they had so many reasons for haste, with an
immense train of field pieces. They would be the less dis
posed to do this, as the Austrians must have been relied
upon to supply them in sufficient number. The French by
the celerity of their movements had, however, obtained pos
session of a great part of the Austrian artillery. The deficiency
of the Russians in this point, was probably a material cause of
their loss of the battle.

WHEN gun-powder and great guns were first brought into
use, they were more capable of striking an enemy with a
panick, than of breaking his line : the cannon were unwieldy
machines, and the management of them was unskilful. Still
the army which had them, must have possessed a great ad
vantage over that which had none. In the time of the famous
duke of Marlborough, the event of a battle depended on the
expertness and resolution of infantry in discharging their mus
kets. In still more modern wars, the bayonet has been consi
dered the arbiter of victory. But the French have introduced
another revolution in the science of war, the lightness and
prodigious number of their horse artillery enabling them to
disorder and break an enemy's ranks, without coining to close

OF FRANCE. 329

fight, by raining upon them an intolerable tempest of grape-
shot.

BY means of their innumerable field pieces, and of their
unusual proportion of cavalry, it has become impossible for
their enemy to defend a country by lines of field intrenchment.
It has been stated, that Buonaparte's grand army was attended
by fifty thousand horse. Such a body, always on the alert,
could strike an enemy at almost any distance, and in every
mortal part at once. If he contracted his posts, his flanks
would be turned ; if he spread out his troops to prevent it, his
lines would be forced. By resisting, he met his fate ; and if
he retreated, it was swift and overtook him.

THUS we have seen the French maintain the same invaria
ble superiority over the Austrians, and lately over the Rus
sians, in the field, that the Spaniards possessed over the Mexi
cans. The Russians and Austrians are as brave as the French ;
but the French are really superiour in the science of their
officers, in the number and management of their cannon, and
in their cavalry. They will continue, therefore, to beat their
enemies, as the Romans did. Even the Grecian phalanx, sup
posed to be the perfection of military science, and absolutely
invincible, was found unequal to the contest with the Roman
legion.

THE French victories have happened in such a series, that
we cannot rationally suppose them to happen by chance. They
are the inevitable results of superiour numbers, and of the
French military advantages we have mentioned. They would
happen again, if their dejected, beaten adversaries could rise
again to resistance.

FROM these positions this melancholy inference is to be
drawn : the continental enemies of France are totally incapable
of resisting her in the field : she has taken a permanent ascen
dant over them. Austria, humbled and beaten, is in no condi
tion to learn the conquering art of her masters. Prussia,
without risking the combat, has fullen prostrate with her use
less arms in her hands. Russia, like the ancient Parthia, is
invincible, but insignificant to the system of enslaved Europe.

330 DANGEROUS POWER

IF the French armies could pass the channel, there seems
to be no sort of reason to hope, that Great Britain could resist
them. The regular army is spread over all the empire, and,
if it were all collected, it would be a handful against the French
hosts ; and, surely, no military man would place the smallest
dependence on the volunteers of England.

IT is one of the inveterate, perhaps incurable evils of Mr.
Pitt's administration, and the greatest blemish in the fame of
that truly illustrious statesman, that, instead of forming an
efficient army of two hundred thousand men, who could be sent
wherever they might be wanted, he was either the schemer
or the dupe of the useless, expensive, and, if the French should
land in England, fatal project of volunteers. By equipping
volunteers, he not only had no army, but it was out of the power
of England to have one. The men were all engaged in acting
the comedy of an army ; and the finances were exhausted in
getting u/i the decorations of the piece.

THE sole protection of Great Britain, then, is in her navy.
The writer has been brought very late, and loath, to believe,
that the military resistance of the continental nations of Europe
would be ineffectual. Events have, at last, convinced him,
that the French actually possess a greater and more decisive
military superiority over those nations, than the old Romans
did over the forces of Andochus, Mithridates, and Jugurtha ;
and, especially, over the Carthaginians, Greeks, and Mace
donians. Nothing is wanting to the solid establishment of a
new universal empire by France, that should spread as far,
last as long, and press as heavily on the necks of the abject
nations, as that of Rome, but the possession of the British navy.
France, whenever she can get access to her enemy, is already
irresistible. If Mr. Gregg would give her that navy, he would
impart a kind of ubiquity to her power. The soft winds, that
wake the spring in the remotest regions of the globe, would
waft there the ministers of French rapacity to blast it. France
would enjoy every thing that Rome wanted, to make the plun
dered world her province.

OF FRANCE. 331

ARE these ideas chimerical ? or are the inferences drawn
beyond the admitted truth of the premises ? Is India more
capable of resisting France, than an English" merchant com
pany, its present sovereign ? Spain and . Italy are provinces
already. Greece, Egypt, the Turkish empire, and all the
shores of the Mediterranean were once the patrimony of the
Cesurs, and for many hundred years slept soundly in their
chains, till they were rudely waked by the Goths, the Heruli,
the Huns, and the Arabs. Africa is a quarter of the globe,
that could be governed by factories ; and America is another,
that would yield, not merely with tameness, but alacrity to im
perial rescripts. If, by miracle, force should be needed, France
could employ Spain, or Dessalines, or slaves still more abject
than they> to use it with infallible success. We should be
ready, not merely to take, but to buy our chains, and to pay
our last dollar as a fine for the temerity of our resistance. We
should patiently sow our fields, and see our kindly seasons
ripen the harvest for French reapers. Our posterity, born in
servitude, would inherit our baseness, and bear the yoke from
the infancy to the old age of their dishonoured lives, without
sorrow or repining.

SUPPOSE the whip of the oppressor should, at length, tear off
the callous skin from the slaves' backs, and rage should be
kindled by pain, and courage engendered by despair ; yet our
resistance would only avail to exasperate our tyrants, and to
embitter the sense and aggravate the pressure of our calami
ties. . France would not fail to array an army of base Ameri
cans, and to place them in the strongest positions of our
country ; and, if these should be insufficient to crush the first
movements of rebellion, her ships would transport reinforce
ments from Europe with greater celerity, than the American
insurgents could collect and train forces to resist them. Our
independence, then must be renounced, or we must betake
ourselves to the fastnesses of the wilderness to enjoy it, like
the revolted negroes of St. Domingo, in peril, want, and bar
barism.

332 DANGEROUS POWER

THE preservation of even this condition would, then, appear
to exact and merit the display of all our energies. Comfort
less and desperate, as that savage independence may seem, it
would nevertheless be preferable to the horrid stillness of our
servitude under the power of French tyrants, exercised by
their deputies, the Jeffersons and Nicholsons, the present arti
ficers of our ruin.

IT is very seldom, that the events of war turn out according
to the predictions of speculatists on their probabilities. Futu
rity is, no doubt, wisely and mercifully hidden from our view.
Yet the issue of the contest between France and Great Britain
is so momentous to America, it is impossible to restrain our
curiosity from examining the position and relative strength of
the combatants.

GRANT that Great Britain possesses adequate means to
cope with France, it is an interesting previous question to
decide, or rather to conjecture, whether there is a spirit in
her government and people to persevere in the employment
of them.

THE death of Mr. Pitt has made a complete change in the
ministry. He discerned, and it is strange that Mr. Fox, his
supposed equal in talents, should not have discerned, the ne
cessity of opposing France in arms, and the fatal consequences
of a delusive peace ;, and any peace, that should leave France
a giant among pigmies, would be delusive. But, as Mr. Fox
has been the opposer of the war, ever since 1793, and as he
and a large number of his most strenuous adherents are admit
ted to power, it may be expected, that he will insist on propos
ing a negotiation. Proud as Buonaparte is, he would joyfully
accept the proposal. He may be as liberal as Englishmen can
ask in his terms, for any peace will make him their master.
Nothing could make it safe, but that France should reduce
her power. That is a condition Mr. Fox will not prescribe,
nor Buonaparte concede.

WE will not undertake to say, that Mr. Fox is bound in
point of consistency, now, to propose peace. He may say
with plausibility, perhaps with strict truth, that the circum-

OF FRAWCft. 533

stances of the two countries are changed ; that he was a friend
to peace, while Europe stood independent and powerful in
arms to secure the observance of it by the French emperour ;
but that now peace would lessen none of the burdens of the
nation, while it would put its commercial and naval resources,
inaccessible in war, within reach of the power and intrigues
of Buonaparte.

WHAT is Mr. Fox's present opinion or disposition, we
know not. We have no hesitation in saying, that, as a faithful
member of his majesty's counsels, it is his duty to prosecute
the war, till England can be safe in peace ; and she cannot be
safe, unless she is great in comparison with France.

ARE there not probable grounds of conjecture, that Mr. Fox
came into the ministry, on the terms of supporting the war
measures of the government. Before the peace of Amiens,
the fruitless negotiation, at Lisle, had opened the eyes of the
English nation to the immeasurable ambition and profligacy of
the French rulers. Mr. Fox then persisted in condemning the
war. After the peace of A.miens, he paid a visit to Buonaparte,
in Paris, and received and permitted such attention from the
French chief, as raised the wonder and disgust of all men, and
the suspicions of many. His motives for making that visit
have never yet been explained.

THIS is certain, his parliamentary influence had surprisingly
dwindled ; and, perhaps, he owes it as much to his frank, open
disposition, so unused to, and incapable of duplicity, as to his
splendid talents, that the nation, with its characteristick gene
rosity, has been willing to forget and forgive his strange visit
and strange conduct in Paris.

THERE is reason to believe, that, when Mr. Pitt last came
into office, the English king had neither forgiven nor forgotten
it. He considered Mr. Fox as a jacobin, and resolved to deny
the importunities of both parties to admit Mr. Fox to his coun
sels. Lord Grenville thought himself bound, in consequence,
to stand with Mr. Fox, and to decline office.

WHEN the death of Mr. Pitt and the desertion of the allies
in Germany seemed to force Mr. Fox upon the king, for all

334 DANGEROUS POWER

men agreed it was necessary to drop party divisions, and to
unite against the common danger, we are told, lord Grenville
was closetted with his majesty, and finally arranged the minis
try to mutual satisfaction. As lord Grenville is an honest man,
and as able as he is honest, we cannot believe such a. man
would recommend a jacobin to the king, or that he could pre
vail over his majesty's aversion to Mr. Fox, without being
personally responsible for his conduct and principles.

WHEN it is considered, also, that those two eminent men
formerly acted in opposition to each other, and that, for three
years past, they have come to a mutual good understanding,
the grounds of division in the present ministry must have been
fully explored, and such engagements mutually required and
given, as will prevent their collision. Those who had always
acted together, before they came into the ministry, we think
more likely to fall out afterwards.

THE union of the present ministry is the more probable, too,
when we advert to the known sincerity and amiable temper
of Mr. Fox. The attachment of no man's friends has been
stronger, than Mr. Fox's have ever manifested towards him ;
and those who remember his famous coalition with lord North,
will believe, that too much stubbornness to maintain the appear
ance of consistency, is not one of that gentleman's faults.

MR. Fox is the only member of the new administration, who
can be the champion of peace measures. Lord Grenville and
Mr. Windham love their country too well, and its dangers are
too imminent to permit us to believe, that they are disposed,
to adopt the fatal counsel's of the old opposition.

ON these grounds, therefore, we presume to conjecture, that
the English ministry will be united in favour of a prosecution
of the war.

WE have not yet inquired, whether there is sense and mag
nanimity enough in the nation, to support the ministry in such
a resolution. The nation, no doubt, is weary of the war, and
staggers under the weight of its burdens ; but peace can
scarcely cheat the blind multitude with the delusive hope of a
respite from those burdens. A vigorous and able opposition

OF FRANCE. 33.5

to war in parliament, might afford aliment to the popular
discontent ; but the men, who used to lead that opposition, are
now in the ministry. They may say, they did not choose, and
have not made the war ; their predecessors, whom they were
accustomed to oppose, left it a sad necessity on their hands.

BESIDES, peace has once been tried, and proved not only
delusive, but almost futal : Buonaparte gained more territory
in peace than in war ; and England voluntarily gave up her
conquests, except Malta, Trinidad, and Ceylon. Such another
peace would ruin her.

UNDER these circumstances, it may be expected, that even
the populace will see, that the continuance of the war is the
hard, but inevitable, condition of English liberty and indepen
dence. If we are not deceived in these speculations, the Bri
tish ministry and nation will concur in pursuing the war.
With what hope of ultimate success they will pursue it, is a
more difficult problem.

DANGEROUS POWER OF FRANCE.
N°. III.

THE sufficiency of the British finances to supply the enor
mous expenditures of the war, is usually the first inquiry. We
cannot, however, refrain from remarking, that the bankruptcy
of the French government has been incessantly expected to
prove the boundary of the French power. It has happened,
on the contrary, that power has made its own resources. No
government, certainly no arbitrary government, will sit still
and die for want of means, when they are to be found within
its grasp: it will put forth the hand of violent injustice, and
reach them. The rulers of France found wealth enough
within and without, and they have never hesitated to use it.
Their armies flourished, while their artisans starved, and
their farmers desponded. The decline of all employments

336 DANGEROUS POWER

but that of arms, so far from stopping the course of their vic
tories, materially contributed to accelerate it.

THE free government of England is less disposed and less
qualified for these extremes ; but it will not be equally under
the necessity of resorting to them. The wealth of individuals
is incalculable, and the machinery of the English laws and
government for extracting it in loans and taxes, with some
degree of equality, and without popular opposition, is, proba
bly, adequate to a great annual augmentation. We forbear to
say, what is the utmost that machinery could effect. An
urgent publick necessity, so palpable as to confound all doubts
and cavils, we should conceive, would enable government to
draw from the people larger supplies, by equal laws, than
could be obtained by arbitrary violence. It is, however, we
confess, a frightful prospect for an honest English minister,
that he must spend, for the publick defence, more than he
can raise by taxes. Hitherto, we believe, he has not been
able to produce by his ways and means more than thirty five
or forty millions sterling, nor to bring his expenditures under
seventy.

IN this extremity, some men have asked, whether the gov
ernment ought not, without further hesitation, to sponge off
their national debt. The jacobin members of our administra
tion will wonder, why thev have delayed it so long. The
English government would long trust and painfully try the
publick spirit of the nation, rather than destroy the debt. We
have men in power, among us, who would sooner destroy
any debt, publick or private, than hazard their popularity ;
nay more, they would sponge off all debts for its sake ; but?
in England, nothing short of dire necessity will bring the
rulers to touch the property, that has so long been confided to
the safeguard of the publick faith and morals ; nor will they,
of choice, withhold a penny of the interest.

IT is true, necessity, though it is the tyrant's plea, is a suffi
cient one, when it exists, for the best government. There is
no reasoning against necessity ; but when there is any reason
ing about its existence, it is manifest that it does not exist : it

OF FRANCE. 33r

not only makes its own law, but its own evidence. It comes
like the fire, or flood, or pestilence, and renders doubt as
much impossible as resistance.

ADMITTING, then, the sufficiency of the plea of necessity to
vindicate the withholding of the interest of the British national
debt from the publick creditors, the fact, that such necessity ex
ists, is still to be made out. We have already said, this sober
argumentative making out of a necessity is inadmissible.
Though it is better the national debt should perish than the
nation, still it is no less true, that the sponging off the national
debt is a measure of violence, which needs all the justification
that an irresistible necessity can afford. Necessity is a law
that makes all other laws silent. It would vindicate the stop
page of the interest of the national debt — it is equally mani
fest, that nothing short of actual necessity will justify such
an act.

Now, while the English government is in the regular course
of paying the interest, and it is only inconvenient to proceed
in that course, because new expenses arise, and it is an un
popular task to provide taxes to supply them, it is absolutely a
relinquishment of the plea of necessity, to pretend, that the
government is forced to stop the interest.

WE know so little of the difficulties of the English govern
ment and nation, because we feel none of them, that it is not a
little hazardous for any American speculatist to decide upon
the proper degree of boldness, with which they should impose
taxes, or the measure of ability or patience of the subjects to
pay them. Nevertheless, we should imagine, and we pre
sume to hope it is the case, that, by new arrangements of the
land tax, by the assessed taxes, by improvements in the mode
of collection of the imposts, and by a reform of the all-con
suming poor rates, the publick revenue may be even yet con
siderably augmented. The power to tax, no doubt, has its lim
its; and when a government has multiplied its taxes till it
has reached those limits, a new imposition will only give a
new form to the publick receipts, without adding to their
amount. WTe may be mistaken, but we sincerely hope it will

338 DANGEROUS POWER

prove, that the wealth of the English subjects is abundantly
adequate to all the enormous expenditures of this necessary
war. The time, we believe, has come to justify all practica
ble reforms of expenditure and improvements of the revenue,
rather than a resort to violent and arbitrary remedies of any
sort ; especially such as sponging off the debt.

FOR it can scarcely escape remark, that Great Britain has
been, from the first, contending against revolutionary princi
ples. How can Great Britain, the champion of faith, and law,
and order, with consistency or advantage, adopt, as a remedy,
the very measure that is the first badge and sure forerunner
of the evil ?

FOR what is revolution ? what is its favourite work, but first,
and with most malignant ardour, to destroy what faith, and
law, and morals, have established and guarded ? The English
debt of six hundred millions sterling is spread all over the
kingdom : it has taken root for a century. To pluck that
root from the soil, we believe, would shake the security of all
property ; and, in the event, it might possibly subvert the
monarchy.

WHEN the convenience of relieving the nation from this
mountain of debt, is once admitted, where will the govern
ment stop ? Will not the progress be, as in France, to make
one convenient sacrifice a precedent and argument for another ?
The clergy will (stand next, on the black list ; the nobles will
follow. Will the many continue patient under the pressure of
taxes, when the plunder of the few is so familiar a substitute ?
In a revolution, as in a shipwreck, one part of the crew is kept
alive by eating the other.

THE national debt is, in fact, private property. We cannot
see, why the publick should seize and appropriate to itself that
description of private property, rather than the ships in the
Thames, or the goods in Bond street. The seizure may be
less unpopular, and may be more surely carried into effect,
than the capture of the ships or goods ; but we cannot see,
that the plea of necessity will better justify the act in one
case than the other. Indeed, the preference seems to be due

OF FRANCE. 339

to the property in the funds, as the government has solemnly
renounced its power of control over it, and chosen to stand in
no other relation to the owner of stock, than as an equal con
tracting party.

To those, however, who may consider this last idea a mere
refinement, too flimsy to be examined or regarded, when the
existence of a nation is at stake, another reflection may be
suggested.

MANY persons may be led, by their abhorrence of jacobin
ism and of French tyranny, to think favourably of sponging.off
the tremendous mass of English debt, which cripples all their
exertions in the war. England, once free from this mill-stone,
they imagine, would be in no danger of sinking. The useful
ness of such an act of injustice tolerably well reconciles them
to its principle.

THE most successful answer to the measure will be, to ques
tion its utility. The whole taxes fall far short of the expendi
tures of the nation. Suppose the debt sponged off, and all the
products of the present taxes applied to necessary expenses,
how shall the deficiency be made up ? By new loans ? Shall
the British chancellor of the exchequer, with the sponge in
one hand, hold out a subscription paper in the other ? Who
would lend ? or escape the mad house, if he did ? If loans could
be obtained, a new national debt would be scored up, at the
rate of thirty five or forty millions a year ; and, as soon as the
size of the debt had begun to terrify some by its effect to
cripple the energies of the government, and to tire others by
the pressure of taxes, it must be sponged off again. Be it
remembered, the violent remedies of great evils are, almost
always, aggravations of those evils. If the minister, unable or
unwilling to borrow, should raise taxes within the year, equal
to the expenditures of war, what becomes of the plea of
necessity ?

ON the whole, is it not right, that the property of a nation
should defend its liberty ? and is this to be done to the extent
that the publick safety may require, unless the govern ment

340 DANGEROUS POWER

can obtain loans in its necessity, that it will provide for in its
prosperity ? A great publick debt is, no doubt, a great evil ; but
the loss of liberty and independence is one infinitely greater. It
is some alleviation of that evil, for any government (for all are
prone enough to become corrupt) habitually to guide its mea
sures and its counsels, by the experience, that its good faith is
its good policy. It ought to make men better, to contemplate the
example of a state, tried, and tempted by adversity, and groan
ing under the load of taxes, yet still faithful to its engagements,
and enjoying an ample resource in the confidence of its cre
ditors, by deserving their confidence and keeping their pro
perty sacred from violation. Such a state gives an illustrious
lesson of morality to its subjects. It fulfils the great duty of
all governments, which is to protect property. This is not
all. It will seem, to some practical men, still more to the pur
pose, that such a state will have the control, in the extreme
exigencies of the publick affairs, of the last shilling of private
property. Such is the spectacle of the British government.

IT is left to others to compute, how essential a part of the
national wealth consists of property in the national debt, and how
much poorer the nation would be by sponging it off. Such a
measure would aggravate necessity ; but we cannot conceive
how it would supply means. As this violation of the publick
faith would be the most tremendous, as also the most unequal
and unfair tax, that ever was levied on a state, it is natural to
suppose, the dread of it and the dread of the enemy would
sanction other very strong measures to get at the wealth of the
subjects by taxes, and that they would cheerfully acquiesce, at
least, in their temporary adoption.

IT is, therefore, we confess, beyond our comprehension, how
the stoppage of the interest of the publick debt, in other words
the sponge, for such it would prove, could relieve the dis
tresses of Great Britain, or supply the resources for the prose
cution of the war. It might ensure an English revolution.
The work of destruction may be begun by choice, but it never
stops while there is any thing left to destroy. Its hostility

OF FRANCE. 341

would be felt by the British government, alid derided by that
of France.

<• WE know not how the British ministry can find money for
their enormous charges ; but, nevertheless, we believe they
will find it, because it exists, and enough of it, in the hands of
the opulent subjects of that monarchy.

WE believe, too, they justly dread the terrible and incalcula
ble evils of a bankruptcy, and that they will find means to avoid
it. If a sense of common danger ever unites men, the British
nation will be united ; and if united and wisely governed, we
hope they will prove unconquerable.

ADMITTING, then, that Great Britain will not be forced to
submit to peace, which is to submit to the yoke of France,
from the failure of her finances, it remains to inquire, how
long and with what prospect of success she can pursue the war.

IT does not appear, that she could not prosper in commerce
and private wealth, if the war should last half a century ; and
to those who fear the war may last for ever, and therefore seem
to think a bad peace ought to be chosen now, unless some
definite time or some precise object could be proposed, as the
end of the war, it is a sufficient answer to say, that war is a hard
condidon of national existence, but preferable to their sub
jugation by France. Base are Englishmen, unlike their an
cestors, if they would not sooner toil for taxes to support the
war, or bleed on a ship's deck, than sweat under the dominion
of a French prefect. Perhaps ive may wonder at their ideas ;
but Englishmen will dread ignominy more than taxes or wounds.

WHILE the British navy continues mistress of the seas, it
is scarcely possible, that Buonaparte should execute his threat
of an invasion. If, then, the English cannot make war on the
land, nor the French on the sea, it would seem that military
operations and military spirit must languish. There is reason
to fear, that this state of defensive languor will engender dis
content in England. But though the expenses might be di
minished, if Britain should have no allies, and should fit out no
expeditions, they would still be enormous. When the fashion
able follv of the volunteer arnw shall be no longer in voerue,

342 DANGEROUS POWER

an efficient and large regular army would enable Great Britain
to strike her enemy in many vulnerable points. She ought
to provide such an army, on which alone she could depend to
expel the French, if they should ever land on the island. The
distant colonies of France are vulnerable, and would yield to an
attack. The employment of the forces would cherish the
military spirit of her subjects ; and conquests are among the
best expedients to preserve harmony and union in the nation.
A SOLICITUDE about the ability of Great Britain to resist
France, will be understood by some of the weak, and will be
misrepresented by all the base and unprincipled, as implying
a desire, that the United States, in respect to maritime rights
and national dignity, should lie at the mercy of the mistress of
the ocean. On the contrary ; let every real American patriot
insist, that our government should place the nation on its pro
per footing, as a naval power. With a million tons of mer
chant shipping, and a hundred thousand seamen, equally brave
and expert, it is the fault of a poor-spirited administration, that
we are insignificant and despised. It is their fault, that our
harbours are blockaded, by three British ships, and that out
rages are perpetrated within the waters that form part of our
jurisdiction, such as no circumstances can justify. Can there
exist a stronger proof, that our insignificance is to be ascribed
to a bad administration, than this single fact : with the greatest
merchant marine in the world, except one, and, of consequence,
capable of being soon the second naval power, (in our own
seas, the first,) we are utterly helpless : that, in the opinion
even of our rulers themselves, our only mode of redress, when
our commerce is obstructed, is TO DESTROY OUR COMMERCE ! !
We have the means for its protection, which our adminis
tration, unhappily, think it would prove more expensive to
use, than its protection would be worth. They would provide
against the violation of our territory by tribute, and of our com
merce by non-importation.

WHILE, therefore, we explicitly disclaim all apology for
the abuses of the British naval power ; while we strongly re-
ppobate the cowardice, or folly, or both, that leaves our country

OF FRANCE. 343

defenceless, when it is injured, we must view it as an interest
ing inquiry, whether England can resist France ; for, if she
can not, it is certain we shall not.

WHAT could France do, to annoy Great Britain? Nothing;
but to create expense to her government. What could Great
Britain do, to annoy France ? Much ; enough to make the dis
tress of war reach her subjects ; to cut off nearly all her mari
time trade ; and to spread want, discontent, and despair from
the Baltick to the Adriatick.

THE colonies of the enemies of Great Britain would shrivel,
like plants and flowers on the Arabian desert, if they were no
longer moistened by the rills of commerce. We may assist
our conjectures of what Great Britain may do, by asking our
selves, what we should do, in such a case, if ive possessed the
British navy, and were contending, as she is, for liberty and
life against France.

C 344

NON-INTERCOURSE ACT.

First publisJied in the Repertory, August, 1806.

anti-commercial rulers seem to think, still, that the
non-intercourse act will bring Great Britain to terms. Some
time in December, the gun, which congress primed and loaded,
must go off, unless John Bull, who is so notoriously afraid of
a gun, shall, before the day fixed for his fate, turn from the
errour of his ways, and by repentance obtain Mr. Jefferson's
mercy.

No one will deny the great importance of this subject ; or
that the question in respect to our maritime rights, which ivc
have decided so much off-hand, may possibly have two sides
to it ; that Great Britain contests our doctrine, and believes,
or affects to believe, her admission of it would be fatal to her
naval greatness and independence. When, therefore, she is
so loath and so much afraid to yield the point, it seems as if
her finally yielding must depend on her being still more afraid
of our resentment, than of every other ill consequence.

THE matter will, of course, undergo examination in England,
how much reason she has to be afraid of us ; and if our resent
ment shall appear to be of two evils the greatest, we, who lay
national honour out of the account, are naturally enough ready
to expect she will humble herself in the dust before Mr.
Monroe, to avert our wrath, that " distant thunder," which the
National Intelligencer so distinctly heard in December last.

BUT that typographical thunder, which was expected to
shake the plates and porringers on the shelves at St. James's,
has been mufRed on this side of the Atlantick. Our publick
will not break its nap on the apprehension of Mr. Wright's^,
or Mr. Gregg's, or Mr. Nicholson's breaking the peace with
Great Britain. Nothing can exceed our apathy. Whether it
be, that we are a stupid people, or that we feel to excess and
to frenzy, as party men, so that, as patriots, we feel and fear

NON-INTERCOURSE ACT. 345

nothing ; or that our mortified pride takes some delight in
blustering and threatening Great Britain, while France empties
her vessels of honour on our heads ; or that evils in prospect
for the next year have no terrours to the politicians, who never
look so far ; whatever it may be owing to, the fact is, we
behave on the question, whether we shall have any trade, even
more strangely careless than the Dutch do, in respect to the
matter of having a French king or a republick. It seems as
if our rulers had reason to be bold, when they are preparing
to make us suffer, by our defiance of their power to make us
think — Says Moses to the vicar, " the corpse can't take
cold." Our indifference may not be a shield of defence, but
it is opium against our dread of blows.

IF our indifference did not surpass belief, the subject would
have been long ago eagerly discussed. We should have scru
tinized, much more closely than Mr. Nicholson is capable of
doing, the grounds of our assumed opinion, that Great Britain
has such great reason to be afraid of us ; and, probably, we should
have found occasion to suspect, that party has deceived our
expectations on this question, as on almost every other. Every
body knows, that Mr. Jefferson dare not go to war : the fede
ralists are the only enemies whom he ventures to defy ; and
even their accusations are not to be encountered in close fight.
He cannot fight Spain without first asking leave of France •;
of course, a Spanish war is out of the question.

To fight Great Britain, is equally so ; yet, as great complaint
is made of captures, and as Buonaparte will be* soothed by a
shew of hostility against England, the shew is resolved upon.
But be it noted, the shew may lead to the thing itself ! He begins
to bully. Great Britain scorns to yield to his paper bullets.
New acts must be passed, still more angry than Nicholson's.
Popular rage grows out of commercial distress, and wTar fol
lows. If this course be only foreseen, will Mr. Jefferson's
admirers stick to him ? Certainly not.

THE federalists say, and really believe, that Mr. Nicholson's
act is a feeble measure. Suppose, on trial, it proves feeble,
44 *

346 NON-INTERCOURSE ACT.

what is to be clone ? Is some new act to be passed, that will not
be feeble ? What act, short of war or reprisals, can it be ?

WISE nations, foreseeing the ordinary progress of such
hostile acts, will stop short, and compute their force, before
they resort to them. Pride and passion once up, interest
weighs little ; and our threats will raise either British resent
ment or contempt. If we put them on their mettle, they will,
no doubt, shew how little they regard their commercial profits,
even if we could seriously diminish them. Mr. Nicholson's
act is avowedly of the nature of compulsion ; and we know
how the attempt at compulsion will affect a government, which,
we choose to say, has, at least, as much pride as power.

IF any body in America cared about the consequences of
this commercial warfare, which does not seem to be the case,
it would be proper to point out the futility of the system adopt
ed by our Solomon in council. The two countries are, no
doubt, in a, condition to do each other a good deal of harm.
W7e forbear to enter at length on the inquiry, which can do
the most. Let our Southern wiseacres consider carefully what
would be the consequence, if Great Britain, in retaliation for
Mr. Nicholson's act, should prohibit, after December next, the
importation into Great Britain of American rice, cotton, and
tobacco. They will, no doubt, say, these articles are a mono
poly ; they cannot get them elsewhere. It is easy to say so—
but is it true ? Bluster, gentlemen, but, before it be too late,
try likewise to think.

[ 347 ]

LESSONS FROM HISTORY.
N°. I.

First inilllshed in the Rci>ertor'j, Octdw, ISOfi.

V>HARLES II, king of Great Britain, was secretly, a catho-
lick ; and his subjects were, ninety nine out of a hundred, pro-
testants. He was fond of arbitrary power ; and his people
passionately fond of liberty. The times required a close appli
cation to publick business ; and his temper drove him head
long into licentious pleasures. His revenue had narrow limits ;
and his prodigality no limits at all.

HE was one of the most pleasant gentlemen in England,
and as much of a Scholar, as our Mr. Jefferson, though less
of a pedant, and a quidnunc. Yet, after being possessed of
unbounded popularity, he lost it all, and deserved to lose it,
because in every thing, as a king, he acted in the meanest
subserviency to his prejudices and pleasures as a man.

ACCORDINGLY, through his whole disgraceful reign, the
English nation suffered much, and apprehended every thing,
from his corrupt and treacherous policy ; treacherous, be
cause he pursued an interest of his own, separate from the
general interest. Indeed, that nation still suffers from his
misconduct. For Charles basely accepted a pension from
Louis XIV. the Buonaparte of the seventeenth century, in
consideration of which he not only forbore to act against the
schemes of universal empire, that Louis XIV. had then begun
to pursue, but he hindered the parliament from disturbing the
conquering career of France : nay, to the astonishment of all
Europe, he joined Louis in attacking the Dutch. It was then
in the power of England to have prevented the aggrandize
ment of F ranee ; and such was the desire of the EnglisJi par
liament and nation, such was their true policy.

BY neglecting that opportunity, oceans of blood have since
been shed in vain. In 1672, the renewal of the triple alliance,
negotiated by sir William Temple, would have confined

318 LESSONS FROM HISTORY.

France to her ancient limits, probably without a war. But,
though it would have been easy to prevent her from growing
great, it has proved hard, indeed impossible, after she had
become great, to reduce her to her former size. The errours
of 1672 are visited on the heads of Englishmen in 1806.

EVERY democrat will exclaim, kings are base creatures,
who have no interest in the good of the people. This vile
example is not to our purpose.

A KING can be nothing else but a king : when he loses his
throne, he cannot expect to preserve his life. But a magis
trate chosen to play the part of a king for four years, may have,
and, if he feels a low ambition, will certainly think he has, an
interest as a man, very little connected with the temporary
splendour of his office. He is to the full as unwilling to be
dethroned, as any other king ; and, therefore, he will think
much of the popularity, that will secure his re-election at the
end of four years, and very little of the publick evils, that will
He hidden from the eyes of the people for the next seven.

IT would be childish, to think a demagogue will be a disin
terested patriot. It would be absurd, to expect that any body,
but a patriot of the loftiest elevation of soul, would prefer the
pubiick to himself, and would turn himself out of office by
doing thankless and unpopular acts of duty.

A DEMAGOGUE, then, if, for the punishment of the sins of
our nation, any future president should prove to be such, would
certainly dismantle our ships, and leave the forts of our har
bours to crumble into ruins. He would disband our feeble
regular regiments, and make haste to repeal taxes, that he
may grow rich in popularity, while the government is ostenta
tiously made to decline in resources. He will bluster to shew
the spirit, that he does not possess ; and pay tribute to hide
the insults and wrongs, that he dare not revenge. In this
way, his own shame will be exposed three or four years the
later ; and the publick evils will happen, at last, with all the
aggravation that improvidence and folly can bring.

WE make no comparisons — we leave the reader to apply
facts, as he may think them applicable. But, we must con-

LESSONS FROM HISTORY. 349

less, the spirit of party has found our countrymen base, or has
made them so, if they can behold the all-conquering progress
of French ambition, and then think, with any temper, that our
country has not only been left, but for five years artificially
and systematically made, defenceless, as if it was intended for
a prey.

LESSONS FROM HISTORY.
N°. IT.

THE Stuart family kept possession of the English throne
from 1603, when queen Elizabeth died, to 1688, when James
II. abdicated the government, a period of eighty five years.
Though not very bad men, they were bad kings. Their
notions of government were such as have been since called
tory. They were sincere in their principles of arbitrary power,
which were, no doubt, utterly inconsistent with English lib
erty. We would not be understood to justify all the conduct
of the parliament against Charles I. nevertheless, we hold
the English in grateful respect for their spirit and good sense,
by which they nobly asserted their own liberty, the ever-glo
rious, fundamental principles of which our ancestors, God
bless their memory ! brought over to New-England.

BUT the ambition and hypocrisy of the parliamentary lead
ers, and the tyranny which inevitably grew out of their demo
cracy, produced an abhorrence of levelling notions, and an
attachment to the church and monarchy, which gave rise, or,
at least, credit and currency to the doctrines of passive obedi
ence and non-resistance ; doctrines subversive of all liberty.

HENCE it was, that, when the infatuation of James II. had
assisted William, prince of Orange, to dethrone him, (and
the folly of James did more towards it than the arms of Wil
liam) the English parliament cautiously and timidly admitted
the principles of the revolution. To unmake kings, seemed
to them a work, that might be repeated successively with less
and less necessity, and at length licentiousness, such as fol-

350 LESSONS FROM HISTORY.

lowed the beheading* of Charles I. would ensue. When, there
fore, queen Mary, wife of king William and daughter of the
exiled king James, died, William remained king by no right
of blood, but only by virtue of an act of parliament, which might
be repealed by any change of the majority. In this perilous
state of things, men's minds were agitated with the fears of a
renewal of those bloody dissensions, which the contest for the
crown, between the rival houses of York and Lancaster, had
engendered and protracted for more than a century. "-* '••

Ax-length king William died, and also his rival king James ;
and Anne, another daughter of king James, succeeded to the
crown, according to the act of parliament. The death of the
duke of Gloucester, the only child of Anne, happened before
the death of king William ; and, as there was no hope of her
having more children, men began to turn their eyes to her
brother, the pretender, so called. He was an infant, when the
bigotry of his father, king James, obliged him to take refuge
in the court of Louis XIV. It seemed, therefore, to many lovers
of their country, a needless and a merciless persecution of this
young prince, to visit his father's follies on his innocent head,
and to prefer the princess Sophia of Hanover, one of the most
distant relations of the roya! family, to the pretender, who, in
right of blood, was heir to the British crown. Yet the whig
party got the famous Act of Settlement passed in favour of the
princess Sophia, by virtue of which king George III. now holds
his power.

IN these singular circumstances, it was not strange, that
there was a secret intestine agitation of parties and opinions,
throughout the whole of queen Anne's reign. She herself, no
doubt, wished that her brother, the pretender, might succeed
her, in preference to the house of Hanover, whom she deemed
strangers. Nevertheless, as she held her crown in prejudice
of her brother's right, by an act of parliament, and as the na
tion had an unconquerable dread of popery and arbitrary power,
to which James and his son were supposed to be wedded, she
was forced to conceal her inclination and intentions. This was
the more necessary, as her whig ministry, men of vast abilities,

LESSONS FROM HISTORY. 351

\vere possessed of unbounded popularity, and the victories of
the duke of Mariborough threw a glory over her reign and
nation.

BUT so inconstant is popularity, that the credit of the whigs
began to decline, in the midst of successes and triumphs. The
queen seized the moment to dismiss her ministers, of whom
she was weary, and to introduce the tories in their stead.

THE new tory ministry affected great zeal for the prosecu
tion of the war against France, though, in their hearts, they
wished for peace, because the war supported the popularity of
the whigs and the power of Maryborough, their leader, and
because it was the interest of their party to have peace. Peace,
on many accounts, was indispensable to them, especially, before
France was reduced in her power, because they looked for
ward to the death of queen Anne, when they might need the
powerful help of France to place the pretender on the throne.

THE duke of Mariborough had been continued in command;
and such was his superiour talent, that he had every reason,
to expect to strip Louis XIV. of all his conquests, and to re
duce him to a condition of weakness, which would for ever
defeat the enormous project of aggrandizement, which had
agitated Europe for fifty years, and which has lately overturned
it from its foundation. So far the views of Mariborough and
his former whig associates seem to be justified by the wisest
policy and the truest patriotism. But the tories made a clamour
about the expenses of the war ; they preached economy, they
affected to prefer the arts and the benefits of peace to the
glitter of triumphs and to the delusive acquisitions of war ;
delusive, they said, for, while England gained nothing, her
allies were aggrandizing themselves by conquests, which were
won by English arms. The finest writers of almost any age
joined the tory cause with their pens ; and at length the new
ministers dismissed the duke of Mariborough, and privately
signed preliminary articles of peace with France. This dis
honourable transaction was not long a secret. It produced
jealousy and discord among the allies, as might be expected,
and at length a wretched peace, which somewhat humbled

352 LESSONS FROM HISTORY.

France, but stripped her of little of the means, and of none of
the disposition, at a more convenient season, to become the
mistress of Europe. This she has at length effected.

THUS we see, that a party invested with power, when it has
an interest distinct from the national interest, will be carried
on by its hatred of its political enemies to sacrifice the publick
cause to its own. Heaven forbid, that France should at last
triumph over the United States by the operation of such a
party interest in America.

LESSONS FROM HISTORY.
N°. III.

GREAT BRITAIN, whose name and independence, whose
king and people every jacobin thinks it a debt of gratitude to
France to abhor, was once the sovereign of the territory now
called the United States of America.

MR. Jefferson's wise, vigorous, and pacifick conduct has
been so much puffed by his friends, it has become of impor
tance, and will be of more and more, to scrutinize it. If Mr.
Jefferson, now we are independent, has done less for our
honour and safety than Great Britain did, when we were colo
nies ; if he has done that little, later, and in a manner to make
it rather worse "than doing nothing at all, our respect for Mr.
Jefferson's policy ought to decline, or his friends ought to look
out for some other more solid props to support it.

IT would seem strange, if, on inquiry, it should appear, that
our tyrant and oppressor, as the democrats hold it orthodoxy
to consider Great Britain ; it would seem strange, that she
should have acted with more spirit, promptness, and liberality
in asserting our rights, than our government is now willing
that we, independent states, should act for ourselves.

FACTS, which often spoil the work of party, facts will shew,
that no sooner had the war for the succession of the daughter

LESSONS FROM HISTORY. 353

of the emperour Charles VI. to the dominion of the house of
Austria ended by the peace of Aix la Chapelle, in 1748, than
France began to extend her forts on our frontiers from the St.
Lawrence to the Mississippi. She pretended, that her colonies,
Canada and Louisiana, extended to the Allegheny mountains,
and included the Mississippi, the Ohio, the Monongahela, and
other rivers, as well as the great lakes. France did not mere
ly claim the territory — she proceeded to occupy it with military
posts, and to expel the few English settlers that she found
within her pretended limits.

DID the English king tell his parliament, that these aggres
sions sprung from the wantonness of subalterns, unauthorized
by their government, and that he relied on the justice of his
most Christian majesty for redress ? Did he send a humble
embassy to Paris to beg for it ? and, when it could not be had
for begging, did he get an appropriation of two millions, and
then spend fifteen to buy it ? and, after finding that he had paid
for it in vain, did he send to Paris two millions more for leave
only to talk about buying it again ? When Spain encroached
upon us, when she stopped the navigation of the Mississippi
in avowed violation of our solemn right by treaty, what did we
leave undone, that baseness, crawling on its belly, like a reptile
on the ground, could possibly do to prevail on the proud aggres
sor to forbear treading upon us ? We asked his contempt, as
if it was our interest, by obtaining it, to quiet his groundless
fears of retaliation.

IN 1754, Great Britain reasoned and acted very differently.
She might have said, these encroachments of France will
make the factious colonists feel their dependence upon the
mother country a little more than they do. The acts of La
Guiissoniere, the French governour of Canada, are not the acts
of Louis XV. I may wink at these wrongs, and postpone my
vengeance, till I have refreshed my wasted strength after the
disastrous war that I have just terminated ; an unpopular ..nd,
perhaps, impolitick war, which has increased the burdens of
my people, and their impatience in bearing them. If par-
45

354 LESSONS FROM HISTORY.

liament had sitten with closed doors, the king might have talked
two languages, like Mr. Jefferson, war and peace.

GREAT BRITAIN said nothing of the sort. She looked at
these aggressions, and she saw in the whole aspect of affairs,
as in a looking-glass, blotches of dishonour, like leprosy in her
face, if she should bear these wrongs with a tameness that she
foresaw would multiply them. She did not hesitate — orders
were immediately sent to all the governours to repel force by
force ; and major Washington, a name sacred to honour and
patriotism, was sent out to repel the French on the Ohio.
Nevertheless, though war was waged in America, it was not de
clared in Europe. To the spirit of Great Britain, so promptly
and powerfully roused in our cause, we owe the expulsion of
the French from Canada : an event which has saved us from a
war with France to maintain our independence.

HERE, then, are two cases, their circumstances not unlike,
the policy of Great Britain and Mr. Jefferson totally unlike.
Compare them.

LESSONS FROM HISTORY.

Ne. IV.

ROME was a republick from its very birth. It is true, for
two hundred and forty four years it was subject to kings ; but
the spirit of liberty was never more lofty at any period of its
long troubled life, than when Rome was governed by kings.
They were in war, generals ; in peace, only magistrates. For
seven hundred years Rome remained a republick ; and during
every minute of that time the spirit of conquest excited and
ruled every Roman breast.

FOR thirty years America has been a republick ; and during
every minute of those thirty years the only question has been,
how could she make independence chtafi, and not for- one
minute, how could liberty be made durable and glorious.

LIBERTY has rocked the cradle and suckled the infancy of
both rcpubiicks. They are different ; but why they are different,

LESSONS FROM HISTORY. 355

and how different they are, it would take an octavo volume
to tell.

GLORY was the object of the Roman republick ; and gain is
of ours. A Roman felt as if the leprosy had broken out in his
cheek, when his country was dishonoured ; and we charge it in
our ledger. To Rome it cost blood ; to us, ink or tribute.

SOON or late every great nation will act out its character.
As we do not aspire to glory, we shall never reach it ; and our
short-sighted policy, which will not provide by the expense of
to-morrow for the danger of the day after, will be overwhelmed
at last by the destruction of the sordid interests, for which we
have sacrificed more precious ones.

WITHOUT forces, ships, or revenue, we get tallow on our
ribs like the oxen, we make honey like the bees, we carry
fleeces like the sheep, and we build nests like the birds, not
for ourselves, but for others, for Buonaparte.

LESSONS FROM HISTORY.
X°. A".

MACHIAVEL, in his history of Florence, has shewn, that
the rivalship of the great men and the common people is the
everlasting source of discord in republicks. In Rome, he says,
it led to dominion ; in Florence, to slavery and dependency.
Whence, he asks, was the difference ? In Rome, every thing
was settled by reason and expostulation ; and in Florence by
the sword. In Rome they wished to employ their great men ;
and in Florence to exterminate them. Accordingly, Rome
grew from little to great ; and Florence dwindled from great
to little.

THE disciples of the school of equality would learn by study
ing Machiavel, who studied nature, how wide those men run
from the principles of liberty, who carry those principles to
impracticable extremes.

356 LESSONS FROM HISTORY.

BUT what avails federal truth ? If every grave-stone of a
departed repubiick bore a lesson of wisdom and of warning,
the democrats would shut their eyes rather than look upon it.
They have no idea of any principles, except in their extremes,
when they are no longer principles. \Ve not only seem to
choose our own destiny, but to control it. By our extravagance
we render every thing impossible, but our degradation.

IT may please GOD, in the course of his providence, to train
our nation by misfortune, and to fit it for greatness by some
ages of adversity ; but if we should be left to train ourselves?
we must be abject and base.

[ 357

BRITISH ALLIANCE.

First publit/ted in the Repertory, November, 1806.

JL HOSE are not the wisest of men, who undertake to act
always by rule. In political affairs, there are no more self-
conceited blunderers than the statesmen, who affect to proceed,
in all cases, without regard to circumstances, but solely accord
ing to speculative principles.

POLITICKS is the science of good sense, applied to publick
affairs ; and, as those are for ever changing, what is wisdom
to-day would be folly and, perhaps, ruin to-morrow. Politicks
is not a science so properly as a business. It cannot have fixed
principles, from which a wise man would never swerve, unless
the inconstancy of men's views of interest and the capricious-
ness of their tempers could be fixed.

WE make these remarks, because we are sometimes sorry,
and sometimes diverted, at the dispute about an alliance offen
sive and defensive with Great Britain. If ever there was a
question of moonshine, this is one. There is no more proba
bility, that Mr. Jefferson will conclude such a treaty, than that
he will breakfast to-morrow morning upon gun-powder ; and
it is the prevailing opinion, that he is fonder of hominy. We
might as well speculate upon our probable condition, " if
u angels in the form of presidents should come down to the
" federal city to govern us ;" or who would get or lose a fat
commission, if the time had come when Mr. Jefferson would
make no other inquiry than, " is he capable, is he honest ?" It
is a pity, that our printers should argue, and contend, and
explain about any of these mutters of moonshine.

IF the time should ever come, (and a new race of men must
be let down from the sky before it can come) when an honest
spirit of patriotism will have such a question to decide, our

358 BRITISH ALLIANCE.

Catos, and our Ciceros, and Favonii would say, the decision
must depend on circumstances, not on principles deduced a
priori. Salus reifiublicce sufirema lex esto. To serve and save
the commonwealth, controls all maxims.

IT is absurd to say, Washington made no such treaty, and,
therefore, Mr. Jefferson ought not to make it. The times
never required it of Washington ; and if they had, that firm
and tempered soul, that heard reproach in the huzzas of popu
larity, unless conscience sanctioned its applause, would have
impelled him to a treaty offensive and defensive with Great
Britain. The heart swells and convulses at the mention of
his name (in contrast even) with Jefferson's. But even Jef
ferson ought not to be reproached for negotiating such a treaty,
when the circumstances may require it. We are not disposed
to assert, that at present they do require it. We hope, but
while they negotiate with France we scarcely know 'why we
hope, that British hearts, such stout hearts as our ever-renown
ed ancestors wore, will resist Buonaparte, till his despotism has
spent its fury, or the subject nations of Europe have recovered
their spirit. Nevertheless, if American independence could
not be preserved, without joining Great Britain to resist its
great enemy, the coward world's master, is there an American
who would object to such an alliance ? An alliance of this sort
with any nation, is an evil ; but to say, there is no condition of
our affairs, in which it would not be a less evil than subjuga
tion, or than the increased peril of subjugation, without such
a concert of counsels and of efforts, is book-wisdom. It
is that sort of folly and infatuation, which every nation that
now wears French chains has fitted itself for slavery by first
adopting.

WHENEVER, therefore, a miracle is about to be publickly
wrought, and Mr. Jefferson grows so careless of his popu
larity and so careful of his country, as to act the great part,
which the reduction of the British power would justify and
require, let not the federalists take off from his shoulders to
their own the reproach of suffering our liberties to be seized
by France as a prey.

BRITISH ALLIANCE. 359

IF Britain falls in fighting our battles, we must fight our own ;
and what law of sound policy or true wisdom is there, that we
should choose to fight them, unassisted and alone ? We do
NOT* say that the time has come — heaven forbid it should ; but
it may come, and that speedily, when the opposition to a
British alliance would be treason against American inde
pendence. Let French emissaries cavil, but let Americans
ponder.

[ 360 .1

THE DURATION OF FRENCH DESPOTISM.

First published in the Repertory, Fcbruaiy, 1807.

JL H E attempt has been repeatedly made in former commu
nications to shew, that the establishment of a universal French
monarchy has become an exceedingly probable event ; and,
moreover, that if the resistance of the British navy should,
from any cause whatever, be withdrawn, the United States
will become, in effect, a province or department of France.
As, from the nature of our government, and the temper and
views of the parties that engross its powers, it is a thing ascer
tained, that we must quietly submit to the domination of a
master, it is a subject of natural, yet painful curiosity to in
quire, how long will this dominion last ?

THE answer to this question is, we confess, concealed
among the impenetrable secrets of that Providence, which
disposes of human affairs. Nevertheless, it would belong to
the prudent foresight of our rulers, if our rulers were wise, to
discern evils in their causes, to retard their progress, and to
alleviate their pressure. And since those, to whom we have
confided the safe keeping of our liberties, seem resolved to
renounce all dependence on ourselves, and to abandon the ulti
mate disposal of them to chance and to Buonaparte, it may be
of some assistance to our spirit of passive resignation, the only
sort of spirit that our fall is likely to rouse, to create, if we
can, a hope, that a destiny so near its fulfilment, so intolerable
in degree, will be transient in duration. If, after only half a
century of subjugation by France, the empire of the modern
Tamerlane should fall to pieces, the successors of Jefferson
(and fifty years of slavery might qualify some of our posterity
to be his successors,) would no doubt exult, that we had recov
ered our liberty, as we lost it, without effort ; that we had out
lived our conqueror ; that, instead of irritating his resentment,
we had prudently endeavoured to conciliate his favour by the
alacrity of eur submission and the largeness of the tribute,

DURATION OF FRENCH DESPOTISM. 361

which no expensive hostile preparations had been permitted
to impair ; that, like the flexible willows, we had lain flat to
the earth, till the storm had passed over our heads ; whereas,
if we had stiffened ourselves against its violence, we might
have been uprooted, like the oaks. And here our rulers may
hope to dig from the mire of our pubiick degradation an im
pure but copious treasure of future popularity for their wis
dom and firmness. They have already extracted it from ma
terials scarcely less unpromising and foul. •

IN political conjectures no guide is in the least a safe one,
but experience ; and each event is so much determined by its
own peculiar circumstances, that analogy often fails, where, it
would seem on first inspection, similitude does not. The
Roman empire had its origin about seven hundred and fifty
years before Christ ; and lasted almost four hundred and eighty
years after Christ. This long period of twelve hundred and
thirty years, that the Roman state endured, may be called
political longevity; and, as the French imitate the Romans,
we naturally inquire, whether we are to expect to have the
yoke of France so long, or half so long, upon our necks. There
was scarcely one of the twelve hundred years that Rome sub
sisted, that her dominion was not odious or dangerous, and the
greater part of the time both odious and dangerous, to her
neighbours. The weight of her yoke was aggravated by the ar
rogance of her spirit. She not only chained conquered kings to
her car of triumph, but, as her proconsuls had to practise
oppression in the provinces, that they might be able to practise
bribery at Rome, she trod with the weight of a war elephant,
having a castle on his back, on the necks of her subjects.

IMAGINE not, my countrymen, a French conqueror will tread
lightly, when you are prostrate. Wo to the vanquished, is
ever his maxim. There was no measure, there was no end to the
Roman exactions. There is only a small part of the surplus
wealth of a state, that a lawful government will touch ; and even
a usurper will have an interest in sparing more than he takes ; but
the rapacity of a conqueror is pitiless and insatiable. The popu
lace of Rome voted the confiscation of the wealth of the king of
46

362 DURATION OF

Cyprus ; and if a patriot could have proved to them, that, with
more regard to justice, there would have been less booty,
would such considerations have produced a mitigation of the
rigour of their decree ? A conqueror can take all ; and what
he leaves, he thinks mercy.

IT is far from being certain, that we know any thing of the
foundation of Rome. But however obscure we may deem its
origin, there can be no doubt, that for several hundred years
its territory was small, and the number of its subjects less
than half a million. Nevertheless, there can be no stronger
proof of the force of her institutions, than that Rome, even in
her infancy, and with fewer people than Massachusetts con
tains, had cherished pretensions of superiority and formed
plans of aggrandizement, that seem scarcely credible, even
after they have been accomplished. They considered the
capital not merely as a fortress, but it was the "immobile
saxum," the eminence on which Jupiter had commanded his
temple to be built, in token of his protection of his favourite
people. Even then, they called Rome the eternal city, the
metropolis of nations. After the burning of Rome by the
Gauls, the removal of the citizens to Veii was opposed, on the
ground that the gods had promised the dominion of the world
to the inhabitants of that spot. The people, who reverenced
the gods, submitted, and proceeded to rebuild their houses,
instead of occupying much better houses at Veii.

FRANCE, on the contrary, from the first union of the tribes
of the Franks under Clovis, has been a powerful state. It is
true, the national character has been ever in a high degree
warlike ; but the individual character of the Roman citizens
was infinitely more so. Modern armies, the French as well
as the rest, are formed of the lowest of the populace — the
Romans excluded all such from the honour of bearing arms.
In the early ages of the republick, and, indeed, till the time of
Marius, the Roman soldiers were the proprietors of the land.
The prodigious force of a state, though small in territory and
number of people, whose citizens were all soldiers, will appear
from this fact. Not long after Rome was taken by the Gauls,

FRENCH DESPOTISM. 363

und had seemed to be ruined, the little state of Latium revolt
ed, and took arms against the republick. Rome instantly
arrayed ten legions of citizens, an army scarcely less in num
bers, and superiour in force and discipline to that, which a
confederacy of half Europe was able to furnish under king
William against Louis XIV. At the present day, such a city
and territory as then formed the Roman republick, nay, mod-
^ern Rome itself and the very same territory would be awed
into submission and kept in fear by a regiment of foot and two
or three s ;ua.drons of horse. There can be no doubt, that
ten such legions composed a more powerful army than the
million, with which Xerxes invaded Greece, or than all the
forces Darius could oppose to Alexander the great. It is far
from certain, that Alexander's own army would have proved a
match for the Romans.

IF, then, we make the comparison, which the vanity of the
great nation ardently desires to exhibit, we must not compare
Frenchmen and Romans, but the modern empire of France
with the old Roman empire, after the subversion of the repub
lick. There may be some resemblance between the means
and policy of the two states, though there is none in the char
acter of the individuals. It is true, that the French recruit
their army by conscriptions ; but it is also true, that the men,
who are not thus drafted into the army, are mere unwarlike
citizens. It was otherwise in Rome. The nobles were all
generals, and the common people the best soldiers in the
world.

BUT, after the civil wars of Marius and Sylla, the refuse of
the city of Rome were admitted into the armies, and the own
ers of land in Italy were expelled by force to make donations
of farms to the conquering soldiers. After these events,
Rome was filled with a spiritless and abject multitude. Instead
of the people, who had looked with defiance upon the trium
phant banners of Hannibal waving in sight of their walls,- like
every other overgrown city, it trembled and submitted ou
every hostile summons.

364 DURATION OF

ROME aeouired her con uests not only by the superiority of
her institutions, but because those institutions hud made the
individual Romans superiour to their enemies ; but when all
the nations around the Mediterranean had submitted to her
sway, this personal superiority was no longer to be seen any
where, except in the Roman armies. They long excelled all
rivals and enemies in every soldierly qualification : and here,
perhaps, the similitude between Rome and France begins.

THE French armies are, no doubt, superiour in Europe ;
whether they outnumber their enemies, or place a much larger
proportion of cavalry in every field of battle, or bring with
them more field pieces and serve them more skilfully than
their enemies. Whatever may be the cause of this superiority,
the Let is indisputable, that the French are, at least, as much
superiour to the Prussians, as the Romans were to the Mace
donians.

OUR principal question, then, recurs, assuming it for certain,
that the French will establish a universal empire, how long
wili it lust ? In a battle, the best of the two armies will win the
victory ; but, though conquests may be won by victories, it is
extremely difficult to conceive, what means any conqueror can
possess long to maintain them. The petty states bordering on
Rome were gradually, in a course of four hundred years, sub
dued by her arms ; nor was the final conquest achieved with
out admitting them as allies, to be partners of her dominion and
the associates of h«T glory. At length their union with the
state was as perfect, as that of Normandy, once a hostile pro
vince, now is with the rest of France. But the Samnites had
more power, and more implacable hatred to Rome than her
other foes ; and, therefore, they were nearly exterminated, like
the insurgents of La Vendee.

THUS Italy was moulded into one state, before Pyrrhus, and
after him the Carthaginians, contended with Rome. Macedo
nia was not a great state, but Philip and Perseus had fine
armies. When these were routed, Macedonia was what Prus
sia is now. Greece, like the German empire, was an anarchy
of republicks, which, because it was easy to divide, it cost n©

FRENCH DESPOTISM. >36£

trouble to subdue, or to keep in subjection. Egypt, under the
Ptolemies, was as despicable as the French found it lately under
the mamelukes. The Romans overthrew Antiochus the great,
and seized all the provinces of Asia more easily than their best
general could take the single cities of Carthage or Numantia.

To preserve her conquests, Rome built no fortresses, and
resorted to no other means than armies and colonies. Her
empire contained, Mr. Gibbon computes, about one hundred
and twenty millions of souls ; yet her army did not exceed
sixty legions, being less than four hundred thousand men.

THE French keep on foot more soldiers ; but, it is to be con
sidered, their career of conquest was begun only ten years ago.
They have imposed their yoke on nations, not divided into a
hundred independent tribes, like the Gauls and Spaniards, not
barbarians, like the Germans, not effeminate, like the Asiaticks,
but on nations, who confided so entirely on their union, re
sources, and spirit, that they supposed it impossible they should
be conquered. The states now subject to France exceed her
in the number of soldiers, they still exceed her in the number
of people. Their fall has roused every passion of pride, fear,
and vengeance ; and there is not the least reason to suppose,
that the insolence and rapacity of the conqueror will suffer
them to subside. The difference of language, character, and
condition will prevent their assimilation into one people for
many years.

LONG before such an assimilation could take place, the mili
tary despotism of France will be weakened by its own intem
perance and excess. As Buonaparte reigns by uniting in
himself the command of all the armies, whenever his death,
infirmity, or adversity shall afford the opportunity, may we
not expect, that the command of a great separate army will
inspire into its chief the design of independence ? For instance,
Poland, and the North of Germany, which, let it be observed,
the Romans could never subdue, could not be holden without
a large French army ; nor would that army, stationed for many
years in the same quarters, lose the occasion of a vacancy in
the government, to consider their general as their emperour

366 DURATION OF

or king, and to place him on the throne of the country subject
to their military jurisdiction. It is in vain for Buonaparte to
multiply decrees of his senate, declaring his empire indivisible
and hereditary. It is possible and, indeed, probable, that the
government of France itself may after many years of convul
sion become so.

BUT the vast countries overrun by the French will not lose
their ancient honours and their recent shame ; and if the de
scendants of their expelled princes should not recover their
thrones, if their former subjects should not resume their arms,
and chase the French out of their territories, yet the ambition
of the French generals will divide the empire. The conquests
of Charlemagne were sudden ; but the nations, who were rather
confounded than subdued, resumed their independence under
his feeble successors.

THE wars of the ancients were marked with a peculiar
animation and even ferocity. The weaker always dreaded, and
generally suffered every extremity from the fury of the victor.
The people were slaves, and all their property, including lands
and houses, was booty. Such contests could not be maintained
with the half hostile, half traitorous languor of the modern
wars against France. They needed, and they roused all the
energies of all the citizens. But when the war was over, the
conqueror stripped his captives as naked of power as of all
other possessions. Hence it was, that the Romans found it
so extremely difficult to subdue enemies, who fought to the
last with all the energy of despair ; and hence too it was, that,
when once effectually conquered, we hear no more of their
resistance. The Romans were not greatly troubled with in
surrections, except of their armies.

IT is, however, the law, as well as the motive of modern
conquests, to preserve rather than to destroy. The subjects
change masters ; they are oppressed by military contributions ;
but they are not wholly stripped. It is scarcely possible, that
the mildest exercise of a conqueror's rights should not enrage
them, or that any modern mitigation of them should wholly
disarm their vengeance.

FRENCH DESPOTISM. 367

IT ought to be observed, too, as a consequence of the last
remark, that, in the times of the Roman emperours, the popu
lation of every country was in a great measure composed of
slaves ; that of Europe, which France has overrun, is much
sounder. Rome, soon after the expulsion of the kings, was
filled with citizens, who were all soldiers ; but, in the time of
the emperours, its vast walls were crowded with, perhaps, a
million of slaves, who were all abject and base. As this was
the case in Rome, it was still worse in Alexandria, Antioch,
Nicomedia, Carthage, Sirmium, Aquileia, Ravenna, and Na
ples. A degenerate race of conquerors could keep slaves in
subjection.

BUT the people of Germany are, at least, as warlike as those
of France: It is, therefore, extremely difficult to conceive,
what means the conqueror possesses or can employ always to
keep his equals in his chains. Their princes may lose their
thrones ; but we cannot resist the opinion, that, ultimately, the
nations will recover their independence.

SUPPOSING, then, that the French empire is, in its very
structure and principles, a temporary sway, that the causes,
whatever they may be, which have made its action irresistible,
produce and prolong a re-action sufficient in the end to coun
teract their impulse, ought we not, as men, as patriots, to hope,
that Great Britain may be able to protract her resistance, till
that re-action shall be manifested ? And, as mere idle wishes
are unbecoming the wise and the brave, ought not the Ameri
can nation to make haste to establish such a navy as will limit
the conqueror's ravages to the dry land of Europe ? We have
more than a million tons of merchant shipping ; more, much
more, than queen Elizabeth of England, and Philip II. of
Spain, both possessed, in the time of the famous armada. We
may be slaves in soul, and possess the means of defence, with
out daring to use them. We do possess them, and, if our
spirit bore proportion to those means, in a very few years our
ships could stretch a ribbon across every harbour of France,
and say with authority to the world's master stop ; here thy
proud course is stayed.

68

DANGEROUS POWER OP FRANCE. N°. IV.

SUBJECT RESUMED.
Fffst pubtislied in the Repcrtonj^ March, 1808.

W HEN men indulge their passions, they seldom stop where
they should : excess breeds more excess. Party hatred sur
passes all other, as if fiends from the bottomless pit had breath
ed their fell inspiration into the human heart. Their virulence
strikes the understanding blind, and blindness augments their
virulence, till a civil war rages in the state, and, without resort
to arms, quenches half the joys and all the charities of life.
In this condition, liberty is ejected from her temple, and strip
ped of her ornaments and her charms. And as impunity is
not often loifg indulged to habitual vice and folly, whether in
a publick or an individual, the enemy of the state seldom
neglects 'the inviting opportunity to make a fatal progress,
while the attention of the magistrate, who ought to be our
common parent and protector, is wholly engrossed by a con
test with his enemy. The chief ruler is in that case degraded
from his exalted station. He is a man, and, when such pas
sions blind him, a weak and bad man too, a magistrate for dis
order, and our guardian to betray us.

IN these observations we should suppose every man would
concur, who is capable of understanding them ; and, in this
great crisis, we should think he could apply them too. Possibly,
so predominant are party feelings, those will refuse assent to
their truth, who can foresee their just political application.
Nevertheless, let us presume to apply them.

MR. Jefferson has wrapped up all dipiomutick communica
tions from France in mystery. Yet we believe it is unjust, on
that account, to accuse him of a partial fondness for Buo
naparte. Love Buonaparte ! No human being ever loved
him. Love the crocodile j love the shark, who feeds upon the
dead j or the royal tyger of Bengal, who-snatches your children

DANGEROUS POWER OF FRANCE. 369

from the cradle, and cracks their bones in your sight. Mr. Jef
ferson may fear Buonaparte, but he cannot love him. Nor is
it possible, that he should wish to give him power in the United
States. From the inestimable sacrifices he made to get his
present power, we may be certain, that he loves it. Nor can
we admit, that Mr. Jefferson, a veteran, and, many choose to
say, an oracle in politicks, can be blind to the formidable dan
ger of the present day. He knows, that France is not now in
the political world what she was, when he was a pubiick minis
ter to Louis XVI. Excepting England, she has absorbed
that world into her own limits. A change of fourteen cen
turies has passed over her head. She has gone back so much,
and Attila, " the scourge of God," has come again.

MR. Jefferson knows, that there is but one obstacle to the
progress of French power, and that is the hated British navy.
The immortal spirit of the wood nymph liberty, dwells only in
the British oak. Suppose that navy destroyed, would our
liberty survive a week ? The wind of the blow that should des
troy British independence, would strike our own senseless to
the earth. Boastful and vain as we are, the very thought of
independence would take flight from our hearts.

WE have a curiosity to know, whether Mr. Jefferson and
Mr. Madison do really believe we could support our liberty, if
Great Britain had lost hers. Without intending to indulge in
the too common rudeness and disrespect of party addresses, we
should deem it a signal work of patriotism, if, by any thing we
shall offer, we could induce those gentlemen to examine, with
the precision and acuteness of mind that they are allowed to
possess, this awful question for America, If Great Britain falls,
will not America fall ? Shall we not lie in the dust at the con
queror's foot, and with servile, affected joy receive our chains
without resistance.

IT will be ever fashionable to boast of the invincible spirit
of freemen, as long as power is to be won by flattery. We
remark, that some speakers in congress assume it as a thing
impossible, that an invading foe could make any progress in
our country. Others, in party opposition to them, either blind
47

'S7& DANGEROUS POWER

to the truth, or afraid to speak it, readily assent to the asser
tion, that the United States are unconquerable. Thus a dan
gerous delusion acquires not only a plausible authority, but it
seems to be a violation of the sanctity of the national faith to
expose it.

THIS is no time to trifle — let it be exposed.

IF Great Britain were conquered, Buonaparte could have her
fifteen hundred ships ; if only humbled, he could have the ships
of all the rest of Europe to transport an army under one of his
lieutenants to our shores, as numerous as he might think
necessary to ensure conquest. Power seldom long wants means.
He could send over twenty thousand, and more, if wanted, of
his dismounted horsemen, with their saddles, bridles, and
equipments. He would not fail to secure horses from our
islands, such as Long Island, and. the extensive necks and pro
montories, which could not be defended against him.

BEING master of the sea, he could make large and frequent
detachments from his camp to defenceless regions, which he
would strip. To this let it be added, the American army,
if we should have an army, being concentred to some well-
chosen mountainous place, would, of course, leave the cities a
prey.

THUS it cannot be doubted, that he would have horses to
remount his cavalry. Suppose a numerous French army, hav
ing two fifths of its force cavalry, with all the formidable
thousands of light artillery that brought Austria and Prussia to
his feet in a day. Would the American militia face this army ?
Suppose they do not — then our cities, our whole coast, and all
the open cultivated country are French, would the millions
on and near the coast take flight to the mountains ? Could
they subsist, or would they remain long unmolested there ?
Mountains, when no equal army was in the field, never did stop
tli£ soldiers of Buonaparte.

LET us come back, then, to our militia army, since we are
obliged to see, that the French would effectually conquer our
country, if our army should not be able to check their rapid
progress. Could we collect an army ? On all the coast would

OF FRANCE. 371

be terrour, busy concern to hide property, and to shelter
women, helpless age, and infancy. The seaports would not
only retain their own men, but call in those of the neighbour
ing country to defend them. Probably, they would ask an
addition of troops from government.

IT would, therefore, be a difficult and very slow work, to
collect a militia army equal in numbers to the French. Near
fifty thousand men were sent to Egypt, and as many more to
St. Domingo. Had either of those armies landed here, could
we have faced them with an equal force, equal in numbers ?
We think not.

LET Mr. Jefferson ask any skilful old continental officer,
whether our army of militia would push bayonet with the
French. No military man would say, that our militia would
stand the tug of war, and defeat the French.

DID we not, cries some wordy patriot, contend with the
British ? The answer would be long, to make it as decisive as
we think it really is. The British were cooped up in Boston
a year. In 1778, sir William Howe had only four or five
hundred cavalry, and he moved as if he was more afraid of our
beating him, than resolved to beat us.

AT Long Island, Washington was totally defeated, and might
have been made prisoner with his whole army. He was not
pursued. In the third year of the war, his troops, and even
the militia of the states in the scene of the war, had become
considerably disciplined. It is not denied, that with three
years preparation we could have an army ; but we make no
preparation ; and unless we enlist our men, the parade of
militia is a serious buffoonery. When sir William Howe
forced our men from the field, he had no cavalry, and our men
could flee faster than his could pursue. But the French —
experience has shewn, that, when they win battles, they decide
the war. Myriads of cavalry press upon the fugitives, and in
half a day the defence of a nation is captive or slain. Defeat
is irremediable destruction.

WOULD our stone walls stop their horse ? Then the pioneers
would pull down those walls. Shooting from behind fences

3r2 DANGEROUS POWER

would not stop an army ; nor would our militia venture on a
measure that would be fatal : the numerous and widely ex
tended flanking parties would cut off all such adventurers to a
man. No, Mr. Jefferson, do not lull your fears to sleep, do
not aggravate our publick dangers by a mistake of our situa
tion. There are times, and the case of invasion would be a
time, when the mistakes of our rulers could not be committed
with impunity.

WITH an army less than two hundred thousand, but with
double the common proportion of cavalry, Buonaparte has over
run the German empire, Austria, Prussia, and all continental
Europe from the Adriatick to the Baltick, rich, populous, and
computed formerly to arm a million of soldiers.

THE democratick gazettes have uniformly maintained, that
Buonaparte's unvaried success was not owing to chance, but
to the real, irresistible superiority of the French arms, to their
newly improved tacticks, and to the impetuosity of their attack.
All this, rare as our agreement with the democrats may be, all
this we believe ; and we solemnly warn Mr. Jefferson not lightly
to reject the long habitual opinion of his party. We firmly,
though unwillingly believe, that as the old Romans, were
superiour to their enemies, so the French are, at least, as much
superiour to their enemies by land. The vast extent of both
empires, Roman and French, grew out of this superiority.

HENCE we conclude, that, if our militia army should fight
a battle, they would lose it. They would inevitably lose it, and
the loss of the battle would be the loss of the country. The
French would hold the coast by their fleet, and the interiour
by their army. Be it remembered too, that Canada would be
French, if Great Britain should be subdued, and the Floridas
and Louisiana, though she should not. Where, then, would
be the security of the mountains ? Much dreadful experience,
and more dreadful fears would follow the conquest, till at
length, like the rest of the world, we should enjoy the quiet of
despair and the sleep o£ slavery. Popularity, as dear perhaps
as liberty, will be sought no more ; and we shall place our

OF FRANCE. 373.

happiness, if slaves may talk of happiness, in the smiles, or,
still better, in the neglect of a master.

WE have purposely omitted an infinity of proofs in corrobo-
ration of our melancholy conclusion, that, in case of a French
invasion, the country would be literally conquered. We should
tamely accept a Corsican prince for a king, and, in virtue of
our alliance with France, agree by treaty to maintain French
troops enough to keep down insurrection. Far be it from us
to believe, that our fellow citizens in the militia are not brave.
Their very bravery, we apprehend, would ensure their defeat :
they would dare to attempt what militia cannot achieve. Nor
let the heroick speech-makers pretend, that our citizens would
swear to live free or die ; and that they would resist, till the
country was depopulated or emancipated. There is no founda
tion in human nature for this boast. The Swiss were free,
and loved their liberty as well as men ever did ; yet they are
enslaved, and quiet in their chains. Experience shews, that
men are glad to survive the loss of liberty. They must be
mad, to continue to resist the power, that, on trial, has been
found superiour and irresistible. Myriads of persons, we see,
are glad, on pecuniary encouragement, to go into the army,
where every democrat will insist there cannot be liberty, be
cause there is restraint.

OUR readers might soon be tired, if they are not already,
but we should never be tired ourselves to diversify our argu
ment to prove, in contradiction to the groundless and perhaps
treacherous pretensions of faction, that our country is absolute
ly defenceless against Buonaparte, when master of the sea.
We could urge, that the French troops marched through
countries having three or four times as many people as the
United States, with the quietness of a procession. Does he
not confide in the conquest of Great Britain, if he could only
reach the shore with his troops ? Yet Great Britain has twice
our population, in a narrow compass too, and nearly one hun
dred times our military force.

WITH so many proofs, after so decisive experience of the
resistless march of the French, is it not presumption, folly,

374, DANGEROUS POWER

madness to suppose we could be free, if France had the British
fleet. To our minds the proof is demonstration.

WE do not urge this fearful conclusion, because we despise
our countrymen, or wish to see America dishonoured. Far,
far from our hearts are such abominable wishes. Look, look,
fellow countrymen, as we do, to your dear, innocent children.
Ask your hearts, if they can bear so racking a question, whether
a shallow confidence in our unarmed security against Buona
parte, in case Great Britain should fall, does not tend to devote
them to the rage of a restless, unappeasable tyrant. We trem
ble at the thought, that our own dear children will be in Buon
aparte's conscription for St. Domingo, in case the Gallican
policy of our government should be pursued, till its natural
tendencies are accomplished*.

To fools we say nothing, nothing to traitors, with whom a
troubled republick is always cursed ; but we would ask Mr.
Jefferson, we would ask all sober citizens, whether, if the
danger of an invasion be considered as really impending, we
ought not to have an army to meet it ? We ask further, would a
raw army, raised when the foe is on our shores, be fit to oppose
him ? Would you stake the life of our liberty upon the resist
ance that paper could make against iron ?

No, every man would say, that, if we are to fight an invad
ing enemy, sixty thousand strong, in 1810 or 1812, we have
no time to lose in raising an army, by enlistment, stronger than
the invaders, and training them to an equality of subordination,
discipline, and confidence in themselves and their officers.
Such an army with cavalry, artillery, engineers, Sec. would be
too expensive for our means, or for the temper of our citizens,
who have been studiously taught to hold taxes as grievances
and wrongs. The thing, we grant, is impossible. To depend
on a militia not enlisted nor disciplined as before mentioned,
is madness.

IT follows, then, we think, irresistibly, demonstratively, that
our single hope of security is in the triumphs of the British

* The writer could scarcely speak of his children, during the last few months oflm life,
without expressing his deep apprehensions of their future servitude to the French.

OF FRANCE, 375

navy. While that rides mistress of the ocean, the French can no
more pass it to attack us, than they could ford the bottomless pit.

HITHERTO we have designedly avoided all party topicks.
We have gone upon the supposition, that the democrats do not
wish their children slaves to Buonaparte, any more than our
own. We take it for clear, that it is of more national impor
tance to be free, than to carry coffee to Amsterdam. If, then,
we have so great interests depending, we cannot but wonder,
that Mr. Jefferson should endanger them for the sake of minor
interests, which are, in comparison, but as the small dust of
the balance. He professes to aim his measures at the destruc
tion of the British " tyranny of the seas ;" and he seems to
exult in the thought, that they are adequate to his end. God
forbid that they should be ! God, of his mercy, forbid, that,
after having led our forefathers by the hand, and, as it were,
by his immediate power planted a great nation in the wilder
ness, he should permit the passions or the errours of our
chief to plunge us into ruin and slavery. Shall this French
magog be allowed to pluck our star from its sphere, and quench
its bright orb in the sea ?

IT is apprehended, that Mr. Jefferson is entirely convinced,
that Great Britain is now making her expiring efforts. It is
said, he holds it impossible, that she should resist Buonaparte
two years longer. Then let him wear sackcloth. Let him
gather a colony, and lead them to hide from a conqueror's
pursuit in the trackless forests near the sources of the Mis
souri. Frost, hunger, and poverty will not gripe so hard as
Buonaparte.

BUT, if he expects the speedy destruction of Great Britain,
what motive has he to exert himself to hasten it. He knows
mankind, he knows Buonaparte too well to hope, that the
tyrant's hand will be the lighter for that merit. That bosom,
so notoriously steeled against pity, will not melt to friendship.
Among the infinite diversity of a madman's dreams, was there
ever one so extravagant, as that a republick might safely trust
its liberty to the sentiment of a master ? Every moon-beam at
Washington must have shot frenzy, if such a motive among

376 DANGEROUS POWER

politicians could have influenced action. If liberty should fall,
as it will, if France prevails, at least, let us have the con
solation to say, our hands have not assisted in the assassina
tion.

BUT is it so very clear, that Great Britain will fall in the
conflict ? A youthful conqueror, scorning all doubts of the un
limited efficiency of his power, has prohibited the use of Bri
tish manufactures, and all intercourse even of neutrals with
her merchants. He expects to cut off the roots of her great
ness, or to see her wither, like a girdled oak, and her tall trunk
nodding to its fall, making it dangerous to approach her. He
seems, like many of our politicians, to suppose, that her great
ness is factitious, and that her foreign trade is the aliment and
life of its support. For our part, we deem her grandeur intrin-
sick, the fair fruit of her constitution, her justice, her arts, and
her magnanimity. But, as we mean to avoid contested points,
we restrain ourselves to consider the eft'ect of Buonaparte's
decrees to ruin her. He is neither omnipotent nor omni
scient. Of course, we imagine, that distance, art, avarice, and
necessity will conspire to elude his vindictive blockading orders,

IF he succeeds, we hope he will not conquer England. If
he fails, as we trust he will fail, his attempt will furnish her
with augmented means of a perpetual resistance. British goods
will be clandestinely admitted into the continent, after they
have been charged with British duties. The scarcity will
augment the price, so that the duty will not prevent the sale ;
on the contrary, there will be the strongest allurements of
profit. The French government will be so far from able to
suppress the traffick, that we are rather to expect it will be
itself under the necessity of occasionally relaxing the rigour
of its decrees. After having for some time contemplated the
effect of Buonaparte's decrees, we have gradually subdued
our fears of the impoverishment of Great Britain from their
operation.

NOR let Mr. Jefferson imagine, that our country can derive
any temporary advantage from our co-operation in his decrees.
He disdains to wait for the slow progress of art to accomplish

OF FRANCE. 377

his purposes. He now expects to win allies only by terrour.
Let them hate, if they do but fear, is his maxim. If Great
Britain enforces her countervailing orders, our neutrality can
not longer assist to supply his wants. Enraged to be thus
met by Great Britain, nothing remains but for him to intimi
date Mr. Jefferson into an alliance. The world's master
allows no neutrality. In fact there are no neutrals. The
maritime law supposes a society of nations bound together by
reciprocal rights and duties. That society is dissolved ; and it
is chimerical, if not unwarrantable, for the United States to
claim singly the aggregated and supposed residuary rights
devolved upon us by the departed nations. The old system is
gone ; and it is a mockery, or worse, for one nation to affect to
represent a dozen once independent states, now swallowed up
by a conqueror. Ambition will violate our moonshine rights ;
and if we submit to his decrees, we ourselves violate our neu
tral duties. What tyranny will do in contempt of right, self-
preservation permits the other belligerent to do in strict
conformity with it. Where, then, is neutrality ? Let us be
ashamed of a petulent strife about lost and irrecoverable pre
tensions. It is a sort of posthumous wisdom, that, when the
publick dangers thicken, always looks back, and never looks
round our actual position. Why should we not look our con
dition in the face ? The question is not about the profits of
navigation, but the security of our existence.

WHY do our publick men wilfully blind themselves, and
regard no dangers but such as they apprehend from thefrhos-
tility of party ? The earth we tread on holds the bones of the
deceased patriots of the revolution. Why will the sacred
silence of the grave be broken ? Will the illustrious shades
walk, forth into pubiick places, and audibly pronounce a warn
ing to convince us, that the independence, for which they bled,
is in danger ? No ; without a miracle, the exercise of our rea-
v son would convince us, that our independence is in danger
from France ; and, if Great Britain falls by force, terrour alone
would bring us into subjection.
48

378 DANGEROUS POWER OF FRANCE.

WE do not love or respect our country less than those, who
inconsiderately boast of its invincible strength and prowess.
As the destroyer of nations has enslaved Europe, and as only
one nation, Great Britain, has hindered his coming here to
conquer us, they have no ears to hear, they have no hearts to
feel for our country, who would break down that obstacle and
let him in.

THIS is not a party effusion ; it proceeds from hearts that
are ready to burst with anxiety on the prospect of the political
insanity that seems ready to join the foe. It is republican
suicide, it is treachery to the people, to make them an inno
cent sacrifice to the passions of our rulers.

LET Mr. Jefferson avail himself of the power, that his
weight with his own party gives him, and stop the progress
of our fate. We do not ask him to go to war with France.
Consult prudence, and renounce the affection of that false
honour, which has been of late so much upon our lips. He
will find the federalists love their country better than their
party. Let there be peace, merely peace, we say nothing of
alliance with Great Britain ; and if our champion falls in the
combat, let us not, when we perish, deplore the fatal folly of
having contributed to hasten his and our destruction.

Library

THE DANGERS

OF

AMERICAN LIBERTY.

WRITTEN IN THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR 1805.
Norv Jlrst published.

IN February 1805, the following sketch of a dissertation on " The Dangers of American
Liberty," accompanied with a short familiar letter +, was sent by Mr. Ames to a friend for
his perusal. It was soon returned, for the purposes expressed in the author's letter, with
a hope that he would re-consider, revise, and complete it ; and especially that he would
fulfil his original design of applying his argument in a manner, that would lead the peo
ple to preserve as long as possible the civil blessings they enjoy, and not sacrifice them to
delusive theories.

It does not appear, that the author ever resumed his subject, or that the manuscript was
opened after that period, until since his death. Yet it is thought not improper to gratify
the publick with a work, which, though quite imperfect, would, if it hud been finished,
have been found deeply interesting to its welfare.

Sic tibi jjersuade, me dies et nodes nUdl aliud agere, nihil curare, nisi ut mti cives salvi Uteri.
f]iie sint. Ep. Famil. 1. 24.

Be assurer?, therefore, that wither day nor night have I any cares, any labours, but fur the
safety and freedom of my fellow citizens.

A AM not positive, that it is of any immediate use to our
country, that its true friends should better understand one
another ; nor am I apprehensive, that the crudities, which my
ever hasty pen confides to my friends, will essentially mislead
their opinion in respect either to myself or to publick affairs.
At a time when men eminently wise cherish almost any hopes,
however vain, because they choose to be blind to their fears,
it would be neither extraordinary nor disreputable for me to
mistake the degree of maturity, to which our political vices
have arrived, nor to err in computing how near or how far off
we stand from the term of their fatal consummation.

I FEAR, that the future fortunes of our countiy no longer
depend on counsel. We have persevered in our errours too

+ The following is the letter of Mr. Ames, mentioned above :
My dear Friend,

YOU will see the deficiencies and faults of this performance. You will see, that the con-
olusion, if your life and patience should hold out to the end, is incomplete. There is, I dare
say, tautology, perhaps contradiction. It is an effusion from the mind of the stock that was

380 THE DANGERS OF

long* to change our propensities by now enlightening our con-
\7ictions. The political spheie, like the globe we treud upon,
never stands still, but with a silent swiftness accomplishes the
revolutions, which, we are too ready to believe, are effected by
our wisdom, or might have been controlled by our efforts.
There is a kind of fatality in the affairs of republicks, that
eludes the foresight of the wise, as much as it frustrates
the toils and sacrifices of the patriot and the hero. Events
proceed, not as they were expected or intended, but as they
are impelled by the irresistible laws of our political existence.
Things inevitable happen, and we are astonished, as if they
were miracles, and the course of nature had been overpower
ed or suspended to produce them. Hence it is, that, till lately,
more than half our countrymen believed our pubiick tranquil
lity was firmly established, and that our liberty did not merely
rest upon dry land, but was wedged, or rather rooted high
above trie flood in the rocks of granite, as immovably as the
pillars that prop the universe. They, or at least the discern
ing of them, are at length no less disappointed than terrified
to perceive that we have all the time floated, with a fearless
and unregarded course, down the stream of events, till we are
now visibly drawn within the revolutionary suction of Niagara,
and every thing that is liberty will be dashed to pieces in the
descent.

WE have been accustomed to consider the pretension of
Englishmen to be free, as a proof how completely they were
broken to subjection, or hardened in imposture. We have
insisted, that they had no constitution, because they never
made one ; and that their boasted government, which is just

iiiid up in it, without any resort to books. Of course, it wants more tacts, more illustrations,
more exact method, to clmnge its aspect of declamation and rhet> Heal flourish into a
business performance. I know it is unequal When the children cried, or my head ached,
the work flagged. To be of value enough for the author to own it, he must be allowed time,
enlist bestow on it more thought, search for facts and principles in pamphlets and larger
works, and, in short, ma!<e it entirely over again.

Therefore, it is not sin wn to you for publication, or approbation, as a thing that is written,
but a subject proposed to be written upon, for which you will furnish liints and counsels.
1805. Your's truly.

AMERICAN LIBERTY. 381

what time and accident have made it, was palsied with age,
and blue with the plague-sores of corruption. We have be
lieved, that it derived its stability, not from reason, but from
prejudice ; that it is supported, not because it is favourable to
liberty, but as it is dear to national pride ; that it is reverenced,
not for its excellence, but because ignorance is naturally the
idolater of antiquity ; that it is not sound and healthful, but
derives a morbid energy from disease, and an unaccountable
aliment from the canker that corrodes its vitals.

BUT we maintained, that the federal constitution, with all
the bloom of youth and splendour of innocence, was gifted
with immortality. For, if time should impair its force, or fac
tion tarnish its charms, the people, ever vigilant to discern its
wants, ever powerful to provide for them, would miraculously
restore it to the field, like some wounded hero of the epick, to
tfake a signal vengeance on its enemies, or like Antaeus, invi
gorated by touching his mother earth, to rise the stronger for
a fall.

THERE is, of course, a large portion of our citizens, who
will not believe, even on the evidence of facts, that any pubiick
evils exist, or are impending. They deride the apprehensions
of those who foresee, that licentiousness will prove, as it ever
has proved, fatal to liberty. They consider her as a nymph,
who need not be coy to keep herself pure, but that, on the
contrary, her chastity will grow robust by frequent scuffles with
her seducers. They say, while a faction is a minority, it will
remain harmless by being outvoted ; and if it should become
a majority, all its acts, however profligate or violent, are then
legitimate. For, with the democrats, the people is a sovereign
who can do no wrong, even when he respects and spares no
existing right, and whose voice, however obtained or however
counterfeited, bears all the sanctity and all the force of a liv
ing divinity. *

WHERE, then, it will be asked, in a tone both of menace
and of triumph, can the people's dangers lie, unless it be with
the persecuted federalists ? They are the partisans of mon
archy, who propagate their principles in order, as soon as they

382 THE DANGERS OF

have increased their sect, to introduce a king ; for by this only
avenue they foretell his approach. Is it possible the people
should ever be their own enemies ? If all government were
dissolved to-day, would they not re-establish it to-morrow, with
no other prejudice to the publick liberty, than some superflu
ous fears of its friends, some abortive projects of its enemies ?
Nay, would not liberty rise resplendent with the light of fresh
experience, and coated in the seven-fold mail of constitutional
amendments ?

THESE opinions are fiercely maintained, not only as if there
were evidence to prove them, but as if it were a merit to believe
them, by men who tell you, that, in the most desperate extremi
ty of faction or usurpation, we have an unfailing resource in the
good sense of the nation. They assure us there is at least as
much wisdom in the people, as in these ingenious tenets of their
creed.

FOR any purpose, therefore, of popular use or general im
pression, it seems almost fruitless to discuss the question,
whether our publick liberty can subsist, and what is to be the
condition of that awful futurity to which we are hastening.
The clamours of party are so loud, and the resistance of national
vanity is so stubborn, it will be impossible to convince any but
the very wise, (and in every state they are the very few) that
our democratick liberty is utterly untenable ; that we are de
voted to 'the successive struggles of factions, who will rule by
turns, the worst of whom will rule last, and triumph by the
sword. But for the wise this unwelcome task is, perhaps,
superfluous : they, possibly, are already convinced.

ALL such men are, or ought to be, agreed, that simple govern
ments are despotisms ; and of all despotisms a democracy,
though the least durable, is the most violent. It is also true,
that all the existing governments we are acquainted with are
more or less mixed) or balanced and checked, however imper
fectly, by the ingredients and principles that belong to the other
simple sorts. It is, nevertheless, a fact, that there is scarcely
any civil constitution in the world, that, according to American
ideas, is so mixed and combined as to be favourable to the

AMERICAN LIBERTY. 383

liberty of the subject — none, absolutely none, that an American
patriot would be willing to adopt for, much less to impose on,
his country. Without pretending to define that liberty, which
writers at length agree is incapable of any precise and com
prehensive definition, all the European governments, except
the British, admit a most formidable portion of arbitrary power ;
whereas, in America, no plan of government, without a large
and preponderating commixture of democracy, can, for a mo
ment, possess our confidence and attachment.

IT is unquestionable, that the concern of the people in the
affairs of such a government, tends to elevate the character and
enlarge the comprehension, as well as the enjoyments, of the ci
tizens ; and, supposing the government wisely constituted, and
the laws steadily and firmly carried into execution, these e'fiects,
in which every lover of mankind must exult, will not be attend
ed with a corresponding depravation of the publick manners
and morals. I have never yet met with an American of any
party, who seemed willing to exclude the people from their
temperate and well-regulated share of concern in the govern
ment. Indeed, it is notorious, that there was scarcely an
advocate for the federal constitution, who was not anxious,
from the first, to hazard the experiment of an unprecedented,
and almost unqualified proportion of democracy, both in con-
sjructing and administering the government, and who did not
rely with confidence, if not blind presumption, on its success.
This is certain, the body of the federalists were always, and yet
are essentially democratick in their political notions. The truth
is, the American nation, with ideas and prejudices wholly demo
cratick, undertook to frame, and expected tranquilly, and
with energy and success, to administer a republican govern
ment.

IT is, and ever has been my belief, that the federal consti
tution was as good, or very nearly as good, as our country
could bear ; that the attempt to introduce a mixed monarchy was
never thought of, and would have failed, if it had been made ; and
could have proved only an inveterate curse to the nation, if it had
been adopted cheerfully, and eren unanimously, by the people.

384 THE DANGERS OF

Our materials for a government were all democratick, and what
ever the hazard of their combination may be, our Solons and
Lycurguses in the convention had no alternative, nothing to con
sider, but how to combine them, so as to ensure the longest dura
tion to the constitution, and the most favourable chance for the
pu: lick liberty in the event of those changes, which the frailty
of the structure of our government, the operation of time and
accident, and the maturity and developement of the national
character were well understood to portend. We should have
succeeded worse, if we had trusted to our metaphysicks more.
Experience must be our physician, though his medicines may
kill.

THE danger obviously was, that a species of government, in
which the people choose all the rulers, and then, by themselves,
or ambitious demagogues pretending to be the people, claim
and exercise an effective control over what is called the gov
ernment, would be found on trial no better than a turbulent,
licentious democracy. The danger was, that their best inter
ests would be neglected, their dearest rights violated, their sober
reason silenced, and the worst passions of the worst men not
only freed from legal restraint, but invested with pubiick power.
The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness,
which the ambitious call, and the ignorant believe to be liberty.

THE great object, then, of political wisdom in framing our
constitution, was to guard against licentiousness, that inbred
malady of democracies, that deforms their infancy with grey
hairs and decrepitude.

THE federalists relied much on the efficiency of an indepen
dent judiciary, as a check on the hasty turbulence of the popu
lar passions. They supposed the senate proceeding from the
states, and chosen for six years, would form a sort of balance to
the democracy, and realise, the hope, that a federal refiublick
of states might subsist. They counted much on the informa
tion of the citizens ; that they would give their unremitted
attention to pubiick affairs ; that either dissensions would not
arise in our "happy country, or, if they should, that the citizens

AMERICAN LIBERTY. 385

would remain calm, and would walk, like the three Jews in
Nebuchadnezzar's furnace, unharmed amidst the fires of party.

IT is needless to ask, how rational such hopes were, or how
far experience has verified them.

THE progress of party has given to Virginia a preponder
ance, that, perhaps, was not foreseen. Certainly, since the
late amendment in the article for the choice of president and
vice-president, there is no existing provision of any efficacy
to counteract it.

THE project of arranging states in a federal union, has long
been deemed by able writers and statesmen more promising
than the scheme of a single republick. The experiment, it
has been supposed, has not yet been fairly tried ; and much
has been expected from the example of America.

IF states were neither able nw inclined to obstruct the fede
ral union, much, indeed, might be hoped from such a confede
ration. But Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New-York are of an
extent sufficient to form potent monarchies, and, of course,
are too powerful, as well as too proud, to be subjects of the
federal latos. Accordingly, one of the first schemes of amend
ment^ and the most early executed, was, to exempt them in
form from the obligations of justice. States are not liable to
be sued. Either the federal head or the powerful members
must govern. Now, as it is a thing ascertained by experience,
that the great states are not willing, and cannot be compelled
to obey the union, it is manifest, that their ambition is most
singularly invited to aspire to the usurpation or control of the
powers of the confederacy. A confederacy of many states, all
of them small in extent and population, not only might not
obstruct, but happily facilitate the federal authority. But the
late presidential amendment demonstrates the overwhelming
preponderance of several great states, combining together to
engross the control of federal affairs.

THERE never has existed a federal union, in which the lead
ing states were not ambitious to rule, and did not endeavour
to rule by fomenting factions in the small states, and thus
engross the management of the federal concerns. Hence it
49

386 THE DANGERS OF

was, that Sparta, at the head of the Peloponnesus, filled all
Greece with terrour and dissension. In every city she had an
aristocratical party to kill or to banish the popular faction, that
was devoted to her rival, Athens ; so that each city was inhabit
ed by two hostile nations, whom no laws of war could control,
no leagues or treaties bind. Sometimes Athens, sometimes
Sparta took the ascendant, and influenced the decrees of the
famous Amphyctionick council, the boasted federal head of
the Grecian republicks. But at all times that head was wholly
destitute of authority, except when violent and sanguinary mea
sures were dictated to it by some preponderant member. The
small states were immediately reduced to an absolute nullity,
and were subject to the most odious of all oppressions, the
domination of one state over another state.

THE Grecian states, forming the Amphyctionick league,
composed the most illustrious federal republick that ever
existed. Its dissolution and ruin were brought about by the
operation of the principles and passions, that are inherent in
all such associations. The Thebans, one of the leading states,
uniting with the Thessalians, both animated by jealousy and
resentment against the Phocians, procured a decree of the
council of the Amphyctions, where their joint influence pre
dominated, as that of Virginia now does in congress, condemn
ing the Phocians to a heavy fine for some pretended sacrilege
they had committed on the lands consecrated to the temple
of Delphi. Finding the Phocians, as they expected and wish
ed, not inclined to submit, by a second decree they devoted
their lands to the god of that temple, and called upon all
Greece to arm in their sacred cause, for so they affected to
call it. A contest thus began, which w?a doubly sanguinary,
because it combined the characters of a rt ligious and civil war,
and raged for more than ten years. In the progress of it, the
famous Philip of Macedon found means to introduce himself
as a party ; and the nature of his measures, as well as their
final success, is an everlasting warning to all federal repub-
iicks. lie appears from the first moment of his reign to have

j

AMERICAN LIBERTY. 387

jilanned the subjugation of Greece ; and in two and twenty
years he accomplished his purpose.

AFTER having made his escape from the city of Thebes,
where he had been a hostage, he had to recover his hereditary
kingdom, weakened by successive defeats, and distracted with
factions, from foreign invaders and from two dangerous com
petitors of his throne. As soon as he became powerful, his
restless ambition sought every opportunity to intermeddle in
the affairs of Greece, in respect to which Macedonia was con
sidered an alien, and the sacred war soon furnished it. Invit
ed by the Thessalians to assist them against the Phocians, he
pretended an extraordinary zeal for religion, as well as respect
for the decree of the Amphyctions. Like more modern de
magogues, he made use of his popularity first to prepare the
way for his arms. He had no great difficulty in subduing
them ; and obtained for his reward another Amphyctionick de
cree, by which the vote of Phocis was for ever transferred to
Philip and his descendants. Philip soon after took possession
of the pass of Thermopylae, and within eight years turned his
arms against those very Thebans, whom he had before assist
ed. They had no refuge in the federal union, which they had
helped to enfeeble. They were utterly defeated ; Thebes, the
pride of Greece, was razed to the ground ; the citizens were
sold into slavery ; and the national liberties were extinguish
ed for ever.

HERE let Americans read their own history. Here let
even Virginia learn, how perilous and how frail will be the
consummation of her schemes. Powerful states, that com
bine to domineer over the weak, will be inevitably divided by
their success, and ravaged with civil war, often baffled, always
agitated by intrigue, shaken with alarms, and finally involved
in one common slavery and ruin, of which they are no less
conspicuously the artificers than the victims.

IF, in the nature of things, there could be any experience,
which would be extensively instructive, but our own, all his
tory lies open for our warning, open like a church-yard, all
whose lessons are solemn, and chiseled for eternity in the

388 THE DANGERS OF

hard stone, lessons that whisper, O ! that they could thunder
to republicks, " your passions and vices forbid you to be free/'

BUT experience, though she teaches wisdom, teaches it too
late. The most signal events pass away unprofitably for the
generation, in which they occur, till at length a people, deaf
to the things that belong to its pence, is destroyed or enslaved,
because it will not be instructed.

FROM these reflections the political observer will infer, that
the American republick is impelled by the force of state am
bition and of dernocratick licentiousness ; and he will inquire,
which of the two is our strongest propensity. Is the sovereign
power to be contracted to a state centre ? Is Virginia to be our
Rome ? and are we to be her Latin or Italian allies, like them
to be emulous of the honour of our chains, on the terms of
imposing them on Louisiana, Mexico, or Santa Fe ? Or, are
we to run the giddy circle of popular licentiousness, begin
ning in delusion, quickened by vice, and ending in wretched
ness ?

BUT, though these two seem to be contrary impulses, it
will appear, nevertheless, on examination, that they really lead
to but one result.

THE great state of Virginia has fomented a licentious spirit
among all her neighbours. Her citizens imagine, that they
are democrats, and their abstract theories are in fact demo-
cratick ; but their state policy is that of a genuine aristocracy
or oligarchy. Whatever their notions or their state practice
may be, their policy, as it respects the other states, is to throw
all power into the hands of dernocratick zealots or jacobin
knaves ; for some of these may be deluded and others bought
to promote her designs. And, even independently of a direct
Virginia influence, every state faction will find its account in
courting the alliance and promoting the views of this great
leader. Those who labour to gain a factious power in a state,
and those who aspire to get a paramount jurisdiction ever it,
will not be slow to discern, that they have a common cause to
pursue.

AMERICAN LIBERTY. ' 389

IN the intermediate progress of our affairs, the ambition of
Virginia may be gratified. So long as popular licentiousness
is operating with no lingering industry to effect our yet un
finished ruin, she may flourish the whip of dominion in her
hands ; but, as soon as it is accomplished, she will be the asso
ciate of our shame, and bleed under its lashes. For demo-
cratick license leads not to a monarchy regulated by laws, but
to the ferocious despotism of a chieftain, who owes his eleva
tion to arms and violence, and leans on his sword as the only prop
of his dominion. Such a conqueror, jealous and fond of no
thing but his power, will care no more for Virginia, though he
may rise by Virginia, than Buonaparte does for Corsica. Vir
ginia will then find, that, Ijke ancient Thebes, she has worked
for Philip, and forged her own fetters.

THERE are few, even among the democrats, ivho will doubt^
though to a man they will deny, that the ambition of that state
is inordinate, and, unless seasonably counteracted, will be fatal ;
yet they will persevere in striving for power in their states,
before they think it necessary, or can find it convenient to at
tend to her encroachments.

BUT there are not many, perhaps not five hundred, even among
the federalists, who yet allow themselves to view the progress
of licentiousness as so speedy, so sure, and so fatal as the de
plorable experience of our country shews that it is, and the
evidence of history and the constitution of human nature de
monstrate that it must be.

THE truth is, such an opinion, admitted with all the terrible
light of its proof, no less shocks our fears than our vanity, no
less disturbs our quiet than our prejudices. We are sum
moned by the tocsin to every perilous and painful duty. Our
days are made heavy with the pressure of anxiety, and our
-nights restless with visions of horrour. We listen to the
clank of chains, and overhear the whispers of assassins. We
mark the barbarous dissonance of mingled rage and triumph
in the yell of an infatuated mob ; we see the dismal glare of
their burnings and scent the loathsome steam of human vic
tims offered in sacrifice.

390 THE DANGERS OF

THESE reflections may account for the often lamented
blindness, as well as apathy of our well-disposed citizens.
Who would choose to study the tremendous records of the
fates, or to remain long in the dungeon of the furies ? Who,
that is penetrating enough to foresee our scarcely hidden des
tiny, is hardy enough to endure its anxious contemplation ?

IT may not long be more safe to disturb, than it is easy to
enlighten the democratick faith in regard to our political pro
pensities, since it will neither regard what is obvious, nor yield
to the impression of events, even after they have happened.
The thoughtless and ignorant care for nothing but the name
of liberty, which is as much the end as the instrument of
party, and equally fills up the measure of their comprehension
and desires. According to the conception of such men, the pub-
lick liberty can never perish : it will enjoy immortality, like the
dead in the memory of the living. We have heard the French
prattle about its rights, and seen them swagger in the fancied
possession of its distinctions, long after they were crushed by the
weight of their chains. The Romans were not only amused, but
really made vain, by the boast of their liberty, while they sweated
and trembled under the despotism of emperours, the most,
odious monsters that ever infested the earth. It is remarkable,
that Cicero, with all his dignity and good sense, found it a popu
lar seasoning of his harangue, six years after Julius Cesar had
established a monarchy, and only six months before Octavius
totally subverted the commonwealth, to say : " it is not possible
for the people of Rome to be slaves, whom the gods have
destined to the command of all nations. Other nations may
endure slavery, but the proper end and business of the Roman
people is liberty."

THIS very opinion in regard to the destinies of our country
is neither less extensively diffused, nor less solidly established.
Such men will persist in thinking our liberty cannot be in
danger, till it is irretrievably lost. ' It is even the boast of mul
titudes, that our system of government is a pure democracy.

WHAT is there left, that can check its excesses or retard
the velocity of its fall ? Not the control of the several states,

AMERICAN LIBERTY. 391

for they already whirl in the vortex of faction ; and, of conse
quence, not the senate, which is appointed by the states.
Surely not the judiciary, for we cannot expect the office of
the priesthood from the victim at the altar. Are we to be
sheltered by the force of ancient manners ? Will this be
sufficient to control the two evil spirits of license and innova
tion ? Where is any vestige of those manners left, but in New-
England ? and even in New-England their authority is con
tested and their purity debased. Are our civil and religious
institutions to stand so firmly, as to sustain themselves and so
much of the fabrick of the publick order as is propped by their
support ? On the contrary, do we not find the ruling faction
in avowed hostility to our religious institutions ? In effect,
though not in form, their protection is abandoned by our laws,
and confided to the steadiness of sentiment and fashion ; and,
if they are still powerful auxiliaries of lawful authority, it is
owing to the tenaciousness, with which even a degenerate peo
ple maintain their habits, and to a yet remaining, though im
paired veneration for the maxims of our ancestors. We are
changing, and, if democracy triumphs in New -England, it is
to be apprehended, that in a few years we shall be as prone to
disclaim our great progenitors, as they, if they should return
again to the earth, with grief and shame to disown their de
generate descendants.

Is the turbulence of our democracy to be restrained by pre
ferring to the magistracy only the grave and upright, the men
who profess the best moral and religious principles, and whose
lives bear testimony in favour of their profession, whose virtues
inspire confidence, whose services, gratitude, and whose talents
command admiration ? Such magistrates would add dignity to
the best government, and disarm the malignity of the worst.
But the bare moving of this question will be understood as a
sarcasm by men of both parties. The powers of impudence it
self are scarcely adequate to say, that our magistrates are such
men. The atrocities of a distinguished tyrant might provoke
satire to string his bow, and with the arrow of Philoctetes to
inflict the immedicable wound. We have no Juvenal ; and if

392 THE DANGERS OF

we had, he would scorn to dissect the vice that wants firmness
for the knife, to elevate that he might hit his object, and to
dignify low profligacy to be the vehicle of a loathsome immor
tality.

IT never has happened in the world, and it never will, that
a democracy has been kept out of the control of the fiercest
and most turbulent spirits in the society ; they will breathe
into it all their own fury, and make it subservient to the worst
designs of the worst men.

ALTHOUGH it does not appear, that the science of good gov
ernment has made any advances since the invention of print
ing, it is nevertheless the opinion of many, that this art has
risen, like another sun in the sky, to shed new light and joy
on the political world. The press, however, has left the un
derstanding of the mass of men just where it found it ; but, by
supplying an endless stimulus to their imagination and passi
ons, it has rendered their temper and habits infinitely worse.
It has inspired ignorance with presumption, so that those who
cannot be governed by reason, are no longer to be awed by
authority. The many, who before the art of printing never
mistook in a case of oppression, because they complained
from their actual sense of it, have become susceptible of
every transient enthusiasm and of more than womanish fickle
ness of caprice. Publick affairs are transacted now on a stage,
where all the interest and passions grow out of fiction, or are
inspired by the art, and often controlled at the pleasure of the
actors. The press is a new and, certainly, a powerful agent in
human affairs. It will change, but it is difficult to conceive
how, by rendering men indocile and presumptuous, it can change
societies for the better. They are pervaded by its heat and
kept for ever restless by its activity. While it has impaired
the force that every just government can employ in self-
defence, it has imparted to its enemies the secret of that
Avildfire, that blazes with the most consuming fierceness on
attempting to quench it.

SHALL we then be told, that the press will constitute an ade
quate check to the progress of every species of tyranny ? Is it

AMERICAN LIBERTY. 393

to be denied, that the press has been the base and venal instru
ment of the very men whom it ought to gibbet to universal
abhorrence ? While they were climbing to power, it aided their
ascent ; and now they have reached it, does it not conceal or
justify their abominations ? Or, while it is confessed, that the
majority of citizens form their ideas of men and measures
almost solely from the light that reaches them through the
magick lantern of the press, do our comforters still depend
on the all -re storing, all-preserving power of general informa
tion ? and are they not destitute of all this^ or rather of any
better information themselves, if they can urge this vapid non
sense in the midst of a yet spreading political delusion, in the
midst of the " palpable obscure" that settles on the land, from
believing what is false, and misconstruing what is true ? Can they
believe all this, when they consider how much truth is impe-
- ded by party on its way to the publick understanding) and even
after having reached it, how much it still falls short of its pro
per mark, while it leaves the envious, jealous, vindictive will
unconquered ?

OUR mistake, and in which we choose to persevere, be
cause our vanity shrinks from the detection, is, that in political
affairs, by only determining what men ought to think, we are
sure how they will act ; and when we know the facts, and are
assiduous to collect and present the evidence, we dupe our
selves with the expectation, that, as there is but one result
which wise men can believe, there is but one course of con
duct deduced from it, which honest men can approve or pur
sue. We forget, that in framing the judgment every passion
is both an advocate and a witness. We lay out of our account,
how much essential information there is that never reaches
the multitude, and of the mutilated portion that does, how
much is unwelcome to party prejudice ; and, therefore, that
they may still maintain their opinions, they withhold their at
tention. We seem to suppose, while millions raise so loud
a cry about their sovereign power, and really concentre both
their faith and their affections in party, that the bulk of man
kind will regard no counsels, but such as are suggested by

394 THE DANGERS OF

their conscience. Let us dare to speak out ; is there any sin
gle despot who avowedly holds himself so superiour to its dic
tates ?

BUT our manners arc too mild, they tell us, for a democracy — -
then democracy will change those mariners. Our morals are
too pure — then it will corrupt them.

V, HAT, then, is the necessary conclusion from the view we
have taken of the insufficiency or extinction of all conceivable
checks ? It is such as ought to strike terrour, but will scarcely
raise publick curiosity.

Is it not possible, then, it will be asked, to write and argue
down opinions that are so mischievous and only plausible, and
men who are even more profligate than exalted ? Can we not
persuade our citizens to be republican aguin, so as to rebuild
the sp-endid ruins of the state on the Washington foundation?
Thus it is, that we resolve to perpetuate our own delusions,
and to cherish our still frustrated and confuted hopes. Let
only ink enough be nhed, and let democracy rage, there will be no
blood. Though the evil is fixed in our nature, all, we think,
will be safe, because we fancy we can see a remedy floating in
our opinions.

IT is undoubtedly a salutary labour, to diffuse among the
citizens of a free state, as far as the thing is possible, a just
knowledge of their publick affairs. But the difficulty of this
task is augmented exactly in proportion to the freedom of the
state ; for the more free the citizens, the bolder and more pro
fligate will be their demagogues, the more numerous and
eccentric!; the popular errours, and the more vehement and
pertinacious the passions that defend them.

YET, as if there were neither vice nor passion in the world,
one of the loudest of our boasts, one of the dearest of all the
tenets of our creed is, that we are a sovereign people, self-
governed — it would be nearer truth to say, self-conceited. For
in what sense is it true, that any people, however free, are
self-governed ? If they have in fact no government, but such as
comports with their ever varying and often inordinate desires,
then it is anarchy ; if it counteracts those desires, it is com-

AMERICAN LIRERTY. 595

pulsoiy. The individual, who is left to act according to his
own humour, is not governed at all ; and if any considerable
number, and especially any combination of individuals, find or
can place themselves in this situation, then the society is no
longer free. For liberty obviously consists in the salutary
restraint, and not in the uncontrolled indulgence of such hu
mours. Now of all desires, none will so much need restraint,
or so impatiently endure it, as those of the ambitious, who will
form factions, first to elude, then to rival, and finally to usurp
the powers of the state ; and of the sons of -vice, who are the
enemies of law, because no just law can be their friend. The
first want to govern the state ; and the others, that the state
should not govern them. A sense of common interest will
soon incline these two original factions of every free state to
coalesce into one.

So far as men are swayed by authority, or impelled or excit
ed by their fears and affections, they naturally search for some
persons as the sources and objects of these effects and emotions.
It is pretty enough to si;y, the republick commands, and the
love of the republick dictates obedience to the heart of every
citizen. This is system, but is it nature ? The republick is a
creature of fiction ; it is every body in the fancy, but nobody
in the heart. Love, to be any thing, must be select and exclu
sive. We may as well talk of loving geometry as the common
wealth. Accordingly, there are many who seldom try to reason,
and are the most misled when they do. Such men are, of
necessity, governed by their prejudices. They neither com
prehend nor like any thing of a republick, but their party and
their leaders. These last are persons, capable of meriting, at
least of knowing and rewarding their zeal and exertions.
Hence it is, that the republicanism of a great mass of people
is often nothing more, than a blind trust in certain favourites,
and a no less blind and still more furious hatred of their ene
mies. Thus, a free society, by the very nature pf liberty, is
often ranged into rival factions, who mutually practise and suf
fer delusion by the abuse of the best names, but who really
contend for nothing but the pre-eminence of their leaders.

396 THE DANGERS OF

IN a democracy, the elevation of an equal convinces many,
if not all, that the height to which he is raised is not inaccessi
ble. Ambition Avakes from its long sleep in every soul, and
wakes, like one of Milton's fallen angels, to turn its tortures
into weapons against the publick order. The multitude behold
their favourite with eyes of love and wonder ; and with the
more of both, as he is a new favourite, and owes his greatness
wholly to their favour. Who among the little does not swell
into greatness, when he thus reflects, that he has assisted to
make great men ? And who of the popular favourites loses a
minute to flatter this vanity in every brain, till it turns it ?

THE late equals of the new-made chief behold his rise with
very different emotions. They view him near, and have long
been accustomed to look behind the disguises of his hypocrisy.
They know his vices and his foibles, and that the foundations
of his fame are as false and hollow as his professions. Never
theless, it may be their interest or their necessity to serve him
for a time. But the instant they can supplant him, they will spare
neither intrigues nor violence to effect it. Thus, a democra-
tick system in its very nature teems with faction and revolution.
Yet, though it continually tends to shift its head, its character
is immutable. Its constancy is in change.

THE theory of a democracy supposes, that the will of the
people ought to prevail, and that, as the majority possess not
only the better right, but the superiour force, of course, it will
prevail. A greater force, they argue, will inevitably overcome
a less. When a constitution provides, with an imposing solem
nity of detail, for the collection of the opinions of a majority of
the citizens, every sanguine reader not only becomes assured,
that the will of the people must prevail, but he goes further,
and refuses to examine the reasons, and to excuse the incivism
und presumption of those who can doubt of this inevitable
result. Yet common sense and our own recent experience
have shewn, that a combination of a very small minority can
effectually defeat the authority of the national will. The votes
of a majority may sometimes, though not invariably, shew what
ought to be done ; but to awe or subdue the force of a thou-

AMERICAN LIBERTY. 397

sand men, the government must call out the superiour force
of two thousand nten. It is, therefore, established the very
instant it is brought to the test, that the mere will of a majority
is inefficient and without authority. And as to employing a
superiour force to procure obedience, which a democratick
government has an undoubted right to do, and so, indeed, has
every other, it is obvious, that the admitted necessity of this
resort completely overthrows all the boasted advantages of the
democratick system. For, if obedience cannot be procured by
reason, it must be obtained by compulsion ; and this is exactly
what every other government will do in a like case.

STILL, however, the friends of the democratick theory will
maintain, that this dire resort to force will be exceedingly
rare, because the publick reason will be more clearly express
ed and more respectfully understood, than under any other
form of government. The citizens will be, of course, self-gov
erned, as it will be their choice as well as duty to obey the
laws.

IT has been already remarked, that the refusal of a very
small minority to obey, will render force necessary. It has
been also noted, that, as every mass of people will inevitably
desire a favourite, and fix their trust and affections upon one,
it clearly follows, that there will be, of course, a faction op
posed to the publick will, as expressed in the laws. Now, if
a faction is once admitted to exist in a state, the disposition
and the means to obstruct the laws, or, in other words, the will of
the majority, must be perceived to exist also. If, then, it be
true, that a democratick government is of all the most liable
to faction, which no man of sense will deny, it is manifest, that
it is, from its very nature, obliged more than any other gov
ernment to resort to force to overcome or awe the power of
faction. This latter will continually employ its own power,
that acts always against the physical force of the nation, which
can be brought to act only in extreme cases, and then, like
every extreme remedy, aggravates the evil. For, let it be
noted, a regular government by overcoming an unsuccessful
insurrection becomes stronger ; but elective rulers can scarcely

398 THE DANGERS OF

ever employ the physical force of a democracy, without turn
ing the moral force, or the power of opinion, against the gov
ernment. So that faction is not unfre -;uently made to triumph
from its own defeats, and to avenge in the disgrace and blood
of magistrates the crime of their fidelity to the laws.

As the boastful pretensions of the democratick system can
not be too minutely exposed, another consideration must be
given to the subject.

THAT government certainly deserves no honest man's love
or support, which, from tjie very laws of its being, carries ter-
rour and danger to the virtuous, and arms the vicious with
authority and power. The essence and, in the opinion of
many thousands not yet cured of their delusions, the excellence
of democracy is, that it invests every citizen with an equal pro
portion of power. A state consisting of a million of citizens
has a million sovereigns, each of whom detests all other sov
ereignty but his own. This very boast implies as much of the
spirit of turbulence and insubordination, as the utmost energy
of any known regular government, even the most rigid, could
keep in restraint. It also implies a state of agitation, that is
justly terrible to all who love their ease, and of instability, that
quenches the last hope of those who would transmit their lib
erty to posterity. Waving any further pursuit of these reflec
tions, let it be resumed, that, if every man of the million has
his ratable share of power in the community, then, instead of
restraining the -vicious, they also are armed with power, for
they take their part : as they are citizens, this cannot be re
fused them. Now, as they have an interest in preventing the
execution of the laws, which, in fact, is the apparent common
interest of their whole class, their union will happen of course.
The very first moment that they do unite, which it is ten
thousand to one will happen before the form of the democracy is
agreed upon, and while its plausible constitution is framing,
that moment they form a faction, and the pretended efficacy of
the democratick system, which is to operate by the power of
opinion and persuasion, comes to an end. For an imperium in
imperio exists ; there is a state within the state, a combina-

AMERICAN LIBERTY. 399

tion interested and active in hindering the will of the majority
from being obeyed.

BUT the -vicious, we shall be told, are very few in such an
honest nation as the American. How many of our states did, in
fact, pass laws to obstruct the lawful operation of the treaty of
peace in 1783 I and were the -virtuous men of those states the
framers and advocates of those laws ? What shall we denomi
nate the oligarchy that sways the authority of Virginia ? Who is
ignorant, that the ruling power have an interest to oppose jus
tice to creditors ? Surely, after these facts are remembered, no
man will say, tiie faction of the vicious is a chimera of the
writer's brain ; nor, admitting it to be real, will he deny, that
it has proved itself potent.

IT is not however the faction of debtors only, that is to be
expected to arise under a democracy. Every bad passion that
dreads restraint from the laws will seek impunity and indul
gence in faction. The associates will not come together in
cold blood. They will not, like their federal adversaries, yawn
over the contemplation of their cause, and shrink from the
claim of its necessary perils and sacrifices. They will do all
that can possibly be done, and they will attempt more. They
will begin early, persevere long, ask no respite for themselves,
and are sure to triumph, if their enemies take any. Suppose
at first their numbers to be exceedingly few, their efforts will
for that reason be so much the greater. They will call them
selves the people ; they will in their name arraign every act of
government as wicked and weak ; they will oblige the rulers
to stand for ever on the defensive, as culprits at the bar of an
offended publick With a venal press at command, concealing
their number and their infamy, is it to be doubted, that the
ignorant will soon or late unite with the vicious ? Their union
is inevitable ; and, when united, those allies are powerful
enough to strike terrour into the hearts of the firmest rulers.
It is in vain, it is indeed childish to say, that an enlightened
people will understand their own affairs, and thus the acts of a
faction will be baffled. No people on earth are or can be so
enlightened, as to the details of political affairs. To study

400 THE DANGERS OF

politicks, so as to know correctly the force of the reasons for
a large part of the publick measures, would stop the labour of
the plough and the hammer ; and how are these million of
students to have access to the means of information ?

WHEN it is thus apparent, that the vicious will have as many-
opportunities as inducements to inflame and deceive, it results
from the nature of democracy, that the ignorant will join, and
the ambitious will lead their combination. Who, then, will
deny, that the vicious are armed with power, and the virtuous
exposed to persecution and peril ?

IF a sense of their danger compel these latter, at length, to
unite also in self-defence, it will be late, probably, too late,
without means to animate and cement their union, and with no
hope beyond that of protracting, for a short time, the certain
catastrophe of their destruction, which, in fact, no democracy
has ever yet failed to accomplish.

IF, then, all this is to happen, not from accident, not, as the
shallow or base demagogues pretend, from the management of
monarchists or aristocrats, but from the principles of democra
cy itself, as we have attempted to demonstrate, ought we not
to consider democracy as the worst of all governments, or, if
there be a worse, as the certain forerunner of that ? What
other form of civil rule among men so irresistibly tends to free
vice from restraint, and to subject virtue to persecution ?

THE common supposition is, and it is ever assumed as the
basis of argument, that in a democracy the laws have only to
command individuals, who yield a willing and conscientious
obedience ; and who would be destitute of the force to resist,
if they should lack the disposition to submit. But this suppo
sition, which so constantly triumphs in the newspapers, utterly
fails in the trial, in our- republick, which we do not denominate
a democracy. To collect the tax on Virginia coaches, we have
had to exert all the judicial power of the nation ; and after that
had prevailed, popularity was found a greater treasure than
money, and the carriage tax was repealed. The tax on whis
key was enforced by an army, and no sooner had its receipts
begun to reimburse the charges of government, and, in some

AMERICAN LIBERTY. 401

measure, to equalise the Northern and Southern burdens, but
the law is annulled.

WITH the example of two rebellions against our revenue
laws, it cannot be denied, that our republick claims the sub
mission, not merely of weak individuals, but of powerful com
binations, of those whom distance, numbers, and enthusiasm
embolden to deride its authority and defy its arms. A fac
tion is a sort of empire within the empire, which acts by its
own magistrates and laws, and prosecutes interests not only
unlike, but destructive to those of the nation. The federalists
are accused of attempting to impart too much energy to the
administration, and of stripping, with too much severity, all
such combinations of their assumed importance. Hence it is
ridiculously absurd to denominate the federalists, the admirers
and disciples of Washington, a faction.

BUT we shall be told, in defiance both of fact and good sense,
that factions will not exist, or will be impotent, if they do ; for
the majority have a right to govern, and certainly will govern
by their representatives. Let their right be admitted, but they
certainly will not govern, in either of two cases, both fairly
supposeable, and likely, nay sure to happen in succession :
that a section of country, a combination, party, or faction, call
it what you will, shall prove daring and potent enough to ob
struct the laws and to exempt itself from their operation ; or,
growing bolder with impunity and success, finally by art, deceit,
and perseverance to force its chiefs into power, and thus, in
stead of submitting to the government, to bring the govern
ment into submission to a faction. Then the forms and the
names of a republick will be used, and used more ostentatiously
than ever ; but its principles will be abused, and its ramparts
and defences laid flat to the ground.

THERE are many, who, believing that a pen-full of ink can,
impart a deathless energy to a constitution, and having seen,
with pride and joy, two or three skins of parchment added, like
new walls about a fortress, to our own, will be filled with
astonishment, and say, is not our legislature divided ? our exe
cutive single ? our judiciary independent ? Have we not
51

402 THE DANGERS OF

amendments and bills of rights, excelling all compositions in
prose ? Where, then, can our danger lie ? Our government,
so we read, is constructed in such a manner as to defend itself,
and the people. We have the greatest political security, for
we have adopted the soundest principles.

To most grown children, therefore, the existence of faction
will seem chimerical. Yet did any free state ever exist with
out the most painful and protracted conflicts with this foe ? or
expire any otherwise than by his triumph ? The spring is not
more genial to the grain and fruits than to insects and vermin.
The same sun that decks the fields with flowers,, thaws out
the serpent in the fen, and concocts his poison. Surely, ive are
not the people to contest this position. Our present liberty was
born into the world under the knife of this assassin, and now
limps a cripple from his violence.

As soon as such a faction is known to subsist in force, we
shall be told, the people may, and because they may, they
surely will rally to discomfit and punish the conspirators. If
the whole people in a body are to do this as often as it may be
necessary, then it seems our political plan is to carry on our
government by successive, or rather incessant re-volutions.
When the people deliberate and act in person, laying aside
the plain truth, that it is impossible they should, all delegated
authority is at an end : the representatives would be nothing in
the presence of their assembled constituents. Thus falls or
stops the machine of a regular government. Thus a faction, hos
tile to the government, would ensure their success by the very
remedy that is supposed effectual to disappoint their designs.

MEN of a just way of thinking will be ready to renounce
the opinions we have been considering, and to admit, that
liberty is lost, where faction domineers ; that some security
must be provided against its attacks ; and that no elective
government can be secure or orderly, unless it be invested by
the constitution itself with the means of self-defence. It is
enough for the people to approve the lawful use of them. And
this for a free government must be the easiest thing in the
world.

AMERICAN LIBERTY. 403

Now, the contrary of this last opinion is the truth. By a. free
government this difficulty is nearly or quite insuperable ; for
the audaciousness and profligacy of faction is ever in proportion
to the liberty of the political constitution. In a tyranny indi
viduals are nothing. Conscious of their nothingness, the spirit
of liberty is torpid or extinct. But in a free state there is,
necessarily, a great mass of power left in the hands of the citi
zens, with the spirit to use and the desire to augment it.
Hence will proceed an infinity of clubs and associations, for
purposes often laudable or harmless, but not unfrequently fac
tious. It is obvious, that the combination of some hundreds or
thousands for political ends will produce a great aggregate
stock or mass of power. As by combining they greatly aug
ment their power, for that very reason they will combine ; and,
as magistrates would seldom like to devolve their authority
upon volunteers, who might offer to play the magistrate in
their stead, there is almost nothing left for a band of combined
citizens to do, but to discredit and obstruct the government and
laws. The possession of power by the magistrate is not so sure
to produce respect as to kindle envy ; and to the envious it is
a gratification to humble those who are exalted. But the am
bitious find the publick discontent a passport to office — then
they must breed or inflame discontent. We have the exam
ple before our eyes.

Is it not evident, then, that a free government must exert a
great deal more power to obtain obedience from an extensive
combination or faction, than would be necessary to extort it
from a much larger number of uncombined individuals ? If the
regular government has that degree of power, which, let it be
noted, the jealousy of a free people often inclines them to with
hold ; and if it should exercise its power with promptness and
spirit, a supposition not a little improbable, for such govern
ments frequently have more strength than firmness, then the
faction may be, for that time, repressed and kept from doing
mischief. It will, however, instantly change its pretexts and
its means, and renew the contest with more art and caution,
and with the advantage of all the discontents, which every consi-

404 THE DANGERS OF

erable popular agitation is sure to multiply and to embitter.
This immortal enemy, whom it is possible to bind, though only
for a time, and in flaxen chains, but not to kill ; who may be
baffled, but cannot be disarmed ; who is never weakened by
defeat, nor discouraged by disappointment, again tries and wears
out the strength of the government and the temper of the peo
ple. It is a game which the factious will never be weary of
playing, because they play for an empire, yet on their own part
hazard nothing. If they fail, they lose only their ticket, and say,
draw your lottery again ; if they win, as in the end they must
and will, if the constitution has not provided within^ or unless
the people will bring, which they will not long, from without,
some energy to hinder their success, it will be complete ; for
conquering parties never content themselves with half the fruits
of victoiy. Their power once obtained can be and will be con
firmed by nothing but the terrour or weakness of the real peo
ple. Justice will shrink from the bench, and tremble at her
own bar.

As property is the object of the great mass of every faction,
the rules that keep it sacred will be annulled, or so far shaken,
as to bring enough of it within the grasp of the dominant party
to reward their partisans with booty. But the chieftains, thirst
ing only for dominion, will search for the means of extending
or establishing it. They will, of course, innovate, till the ves
tiges of private right, and of restraints on publick authority,
are effaced ; until the real people are stripped of all privilege
and influence, and become even more abject and spiritless than
weak. The many may be deluded, but the success of a faction
is ever the victoiy of a few ; and the power of the few can be
supported by nothing but force. This catastrophe is fatal.

THE people, it will be thought, will see their errour, and
return. But there is no return to liberty. What the fire of
faction does not destroy, it will debase. Those, who have once
tasted of the cup of sovereignty, will be unfitted to be subjects ;
and those, who have not, will scarcely form a wish beyond the
unmolested ignominy of slaves.

AMERICAN LIBERTY. 405

BUT will those who scorn to live at all, unless they can live
free, will these noble spirits abandon the pubiick cause ? Will
they not break their chains on the heads of their oppressors ?
Suppose they attempt it, then we have a civil war ; and when po
litical diseases require the sword, the remedy will kill. Tyrants
may be dethroned, and usurpers expelled and punished ; but
the sword, once drawn, cannot be sheathed. Whoever holds it,
must rule by it ; and that rule, though victory should give it
to the best men and the honestest cause, cannot be liberty.
Though painted as a goddess, she is mortal, and her spirit,
once severed by the sword, can be evoked no more from the
shades.

Is this catastrophe too distant to be viewed, or too improba
ble to be dreaded ? I should not think it so formidably near as
I do, if in the short interval of impending fate, in which alone
it can be of any use to be active, the heart of every honest man
in the nation, or even in New-England, was penetrated with
the anxiety that oppresses my own *. Then the subversion of
the public liberty would at least be delayed, if it could not be
prevented. Her maladies might be palliated, if not cured. She
might long drag on the life of an invalid, instead of soon suf
fering the death of a martyr.

THE soft, timid sons of luxury love liberty as well as it is
possible they should, to love pleasure better. They desire to
sleep in security, and to enjoy protection, without being molest
ed to give it. Whi'e all, who are not devoted to pleasure, arc
eager in the pursuit of wealth, how will it be possible to rouse
such a spirit of liberty, as can alone secure, or prolong its pos
session ? For if in the extraordinary perils of the republick, the
citizens will not kindle with a more than ordinary, with a
heroick flame, its cause will be abandoned without effort, and
lost beyond redemption. But if the faithful votaries of liberty,
uncertain what counsels to follow, should, for the present,

* This short paragraph explains the writer's motive for presenting such a gloomy pic
ture of the affairs of our country. He hoped, br alarming llie honest part of onr citizen?,
to defer, or mitigate onr fine.

406 THE DANGERS OF

withhold their exertions, will they not at least bestow their
attention ? Will they not fix it,- with an unusual intensity of
thought, upon the scene ; and will they not fortify their nerves
to contemplate a prospect that is shaded with horrour, and
already flashes with tempest ?

IF the positions laid down as theory could be denied, the
brief history of the federal administration would establish them.
It was first confided to the truest, and purest patriot that ever
lived. It succeeded a period, dismal and dark, and, like the
morning sun, lighted up a sudden splendour, that was gratui
tous, for it consumed nothing, but its genial rays cherished
the powers of vegetation, while they displayed its exuberance.
There was no example, scarcely a pretence of oppression ; yet
faction, basking in those rays, and sucking venom from the
ground, even then cried out, " O sun, I tell thee, how I hate thy
beams." 1-' action was organized sooner than the government.

IF the most urgent publick reasons could ever silence or
satisfy the spirit of faction, the adoption of the new constitu
tion would have been prompt and unanimous. The govern
ment of a great nation had barely revenue enough to buy sta
tionary for its clerks, or to pay the salary of the door-keeper.
Publick faith and publick force were equally out of the ques
tion, for as it respected either authority or resources, the cor
poration of a college, or the missionary society were greater
potentates than congress. Our federal government had not
merely fallen into imbecility and, of course, into contempt,
but the oligarchical factions in the large states had actually
made great advances in the usurpation of its powers. The
king of New-York levied imposts on Jersey and Connecticut ;
and the nobles of Virginia bore with impatience their tributary
dependence on Baltimore and Philadelphia. Our discontents
were fermenting into civil war ; and that would have multipli
ed and exasperated our discontents.

IMPENDING publick evils, so obvious and so near, happily rous
ed all the patriotism of the country ; but they roused its ambi
tion too. The great state chieftains found the sovereign power
unoccupied, and, like the lieutenants of Alexander, each em-

AMERICAN LIBERTY. 407

ployed intrigue, and would soon have employed force, to erect
his province into a separate monarchy or aristocracy. Po
pular republican names would, indeed, have been used, but
in the struggles of ambition they would have been used only
to cloak usurpation and tyranny. How late, and with what
sourness and reluctance did New-York and Virginia renounce
the hopes of aggrandizement, which their antiiederal leaders
had so passionately cherished ! The opposition to the adop
tion of the federal constitution was not a controversy about
principles ; it was a struggle for power. In the great states,
the ruling party, with that sagacity which too often accom
panies inordinate ambition, instantly discerned, that, if the
new government should go into operation with all the energy
that its letter and spirit would authorize, they must cease to
rule—still worse, they must submit to be ruled, nay, worst
of all, they must be ruled by their equals, a condition of real
wretchedness and supposed disgrace, which our impatient
tyrants anticipated with instinctive and unspeakable horrour.

To prevent this dreaded result of the new constitution,
which, by securing a real legal equality to all the citizens,
would bring them down to an equality, their earliest care was
to bind the ties of their factious union more closely together;
and by combining their influence and exerting the utmost
malignity of their art, to render the new government odious
and suspected by the people. Thus, conceived in jealousy and
born in weakness and dissension, they hoped to see it sink,
like its predecessor, the confederation, into contempt. Hence
it was, that in every great state a faction arose with the
fiercest hostility to the federal constitution, and active in
devising and pursuing every scheme, however unwarrant
able or audacious, that would obstruct the establishment of
any power in the state superiour to its own.

IT is undeniably true, therefore, that faction was organized
sooner than the new government. We are not to charge this
event to the accidental rivalships or disgusts of leading men,
but to the operation of the invariable principles that preside

408 THE DANGERS OF

over human actions and political affairs. Power had slipped
out of the feeble hands of the old congress ; and the world's
power, like its wealth, can never lie one moment without a
possessor. The states had instantly succeeded to the vacant
sovereignty ; and the leading men in the great states, for the
small ones were inactive from a sense of their insignificance,
engrossed their authority. Where the executive authority
was single, the governour, as, for instance, in New-York, felt
his brow encircled with a diadem ; but in those states where
the governour is a mere cypher, the men who influenced the
assembly governed the state, and there an oligarchy estab
lished itself. When has it been seen in the world, that the
possession of sovereign power was regarded with indifference,
or resigned without effort ? If all that is ambition in the heart
of man had slept in America, till the era of the new constitu
tion, the events of that period would not merely have awak
ened it into life, but have quickened it into all the agitations
of frenzy.

THEN commenced an active struggle for power. Faction
resolved, that the new government should not exist at all,
or, if that could not be prevented, that it should exist without
energy. Accordingly, the presses of that time teemed with
calumny and invective. Before the new government had
done any thing, there was nothing oppressive or tyrannical
which it was not accused of meditating ; and when it began
its operations, there was nothing wise or fit that it was not
charged with neglecting ; nothing right or beneficial that it
did, but from an insidious design to delude and betray the
people. The cry of usurpation and oppression was louder
then, when all was prosperous and beneficent, than it has
been since, when the judiciary is violently abolished, the
judges dragged to the culprit's bar, the constitution changed
to prevent a change of rulers, and the path plainly marked
out and already half travelled over Tor the ambition of those
rulers to reign in contempt of the people's votes and on the
ruins of their libertv.

AMERICAN LIBERTY. 409

HE is certainly a political novice or a hypocrite, who will
pretend, that the an ti federal opposition to the government
is to be ascribed to the concern of the people for their
liberties^ rather than to the profligate ambition of their dema
gogues, eager for power, and suddenly alarmed by the immi
nent danger of losing- it ; demagogues, who, leading lives
like Clodius, and with the maxims of Cato in their mouths,
cherishing principles like Catiline, have acted steadily on a
plan of usurpation like Cesar. Their labour for twelve
years was to. inflame and deceive ; and their recompense, for
the last four, has been to degrade and betray.

ANY person who considers the instability of all authority,
that is not only derived from the multitude, but wanes or
increases with the ever changing phases of their levity and ca
price, will pronounce, that the federal government was from
the first, and from its very nature and organization, fated to
sink under the rivalship of its state competitors for dominion.
Virginia has never been more federal than it was, when, from
considerations of policy, and, perhaps, in the hope of future
success from its intrigues, it adopted the new constitution ;
for it has never desisted from obstructing its measures and
urging every scheme that would reduce it back again to the
imbecility of the old confederation. To the dismay of every
true patriot, these arts have at length fatally succeeded ; and
our system of government now differs very little from what
it would have been, if the impost proposed by the old con
gress had been granted, and the new federal constitution had
never been adopted by the states. * In that case, the states
being left to their natural inequality, the small states would
have been, as they now are, nothing, and Virginia, potent in
herself, more potent by her influence and intrigues, and
uncontrolled by a superiour federal head, would, of course,
have been every thing. Baltimore, like Antium, and Phila
delphia, like Capua, would have bowed their proud necks to

* This was written in January, 1805, when the judicial power was removed, and other
dilapidations of the federal edifice in progress.

52

410 THE DANGERS OF

a new Roman yoke. If any of her more powerful neigh
bours had resisted her dominion, she would have spread her
factions into their bosoms, and, like the Marsi and the Sam-
nites, they would, at last, though, perhaps, somewhat the
later for their valour, have graced the pomp of her triumphs,
and afterwards assisted to maintain the terrour of her arms.

So far as state opposition was concerned, it does not appear,
that it has been overcome in any of the great states by the
mild and successful operation of the federal government. But
if states had not been its rivals, yet the matchless industry
and close combination of the factious individuals who guided
the antifederal presses would, in the end, tnough, perhaps,
not so soon as it has been accomplished by the help of Vir
ginia, have disarmed and prostrated the federal government.
We have the experience of France before our eyes to prove,
that, with such a city as Paris, it is utterly impossible to sup
port a free republican system. A profligate press has more
authority than morals ; and a faction will possess more energy
than magistrates or laws.

Ox evidence thus lamentably clear, I found my opinion,
that the federalists can never again become the dominant
party ; in other words, the publick reason and virtue cannot
be again, as in our first twelve years, and never will be again
the governing power, till our government has passed through
its revolutionary changes. Every faction that may happen
to rule will pursue but two objects, its vengeance on the
fallen party, and the security of its own power against any
new one that may rise to contest it. As to the glory that
wise rulers partake, when they obtain it for their nation, no
person of understanding will suppose, that the gaudy, ephe
meral insects, that bask and flutter no longer than while the
sun of popularity shines without a cloud, will either possess
the means or feel the passion for it. What have the Con-
dorcets and Rolands of to-day to hope or to enjoy from the
personal reputation or publick happiness of to-morrow ?
Their objects are ull selfish, all temporary. Mr. Jefferson's

AMERICAN LIBERTY. 411

letters to Mazzei or Paine, his connexion with Callender, or
his mean condescensions to France and Spain, will add
nothing to the weight of his disgrace with the party that shall
supplant him. To be their enemy will be disgrace enough,
and so far a refuge for his fame, as it will stop all curiosity
and inquiry into particulars. Every party that has fallen in
France has been overwhelmed with infamy, but without
proofs or discrimination. If time and truth have furnished
any materials for the vindication of the ex-rulers, there has,
nevertheless, been no instance of the return of the publick
to pity, or of the injured to power. The revolution has no
retrograde steps. Its course is onward from the patriots
and statesmen to the hypocrites and cowards, and onward
still through successive committees of ruffians, till some one
ruffian happens to be a hero. Then chance no longer has
a power over events, for this last inevitably becomes an
emperour.

THE restoration of the federalists to their merited influence
in the government supposes two things, the slumber or ex
tinction of faction, and the efficacy of publick morals. It sup
poses an interval of calm, when reason will dare to speak, and
prejudice itself will incline to hear. Then, it is still hoped
by many, Nova firogenies caelo demittitur alto, the genuine
publick voice would call wisdom into power ; and the love of
country, which is the morality of politicks, would guard and
maintain its authority.

ARE not these the visions that delight a poet's fancy, but
will never revisit the statesman's eyes ? When will faction
sleep ? Not till its labours of vengeance and ambition are
over. Faction, we know, is the twin brother of our liberty,
and born first ; and, as we are told in the fable of Castor and
Pollux, the only one of the two that is immortal. As long
as there is a faction in full force, and possessed of the govern
ment too, the publick will and the publick reason must have
power to compel, as well as to convince, or they will convince
without reforming. Bad men, who rise by intrigue, may be
dispossessed by worse men, who rise over their heads by

412 THE DANGERS OF

deeper intrigue ; but what has the publick reason to do, but
to deplore its silence or to polish its chains ? This last we
find is now the case in France. All the talent of that coun
try is. employed to illustrate the virtues and exploits of that
chief, who has made a nation happy by putting an end to i.he
agitations of what they called their liberty, and who naturally
enough insist, that they enjoy more glory than any other
people, because they are more terrible to all.

THE publick reason, therefore, is so little in a condition to
re-establish the federal cause, that it \vill not long maintain
its own. Do we not see our giddy multitude celebrate with
joy the triumphs of a party over some essential articles of
our constitution, and recently over one integral and indepen
dent branch of our government ? When our Roland falls, our
Dan ton will be greeted with as Iqud a peal and as -splendid a
triumph. If federalism could by a miracle resume the reins
of power, unless political virtue and pure morals should
return also, those reins would soon drop or be snatched from
its hands.

BY political virtue is meant that love of country diffused
through the society and ardent in each individual, that would
dispose, or rather impel every one to do or suffer much for
his country, and permit no one to do any thing against it.
The Romans sustained the hardships and dangers of military
service, which fell not, as amongst modern nations, on the
dregs of society, but, till the time of Marius, exclusively on
the flower of the middle and noble classes. They sustained
them, nevertheless, both with constancy and alacrity, because
tne excellence of life, every Roman thought, was glory, and
the excellence of each man's glory lay in its redounding to
the splendour and extent of the empire of Rome.

Is there any resemblance in all this to the habits and pas
sions that predominate in America ? Are not our people
wholly engrossed by the pursuit of wealth and pleasure ?
Though grouped together into a society, the propensities of
the individual still prevail ; and if the nation discovers the

AMERICAN LIBERTY. 413

rudiments of any character, they are yet to be developed.
In forming it, have we not ground to fear, that the sour, dis
social, malignant spirit of our politicks will continue to find
more to dread and hate in party, than tQ love and reverence
in our country ? What foundation can there be for that polit
ical virtue to rest upon, while the virtue of the society is
proscribed, and its vice lays an exclusive claim to emolu
ment and honour ? And as long as faction governs, it must
look to all that is vice in the state for its force, and to all that
is virtue for its plunder. It is not merely the choice of fac
tion, though, no doubt, base agents are to be preferred for
base purposes, but it is its necessity also, to keep men of true
worth depressed by keeping the turbulent and worthless
contented.

How, then, can love of country take root and grow in a
soil, from which every valuable plant has thus been plucked
up and thrown away as a weed ? How can we forbear to
identify the government with the country ? and how is it
possible, that we should at the same time lavish all the ar
dour of our affection, and yet withhold every emotion either
of confidence or esteem ? It is said, that in republicks ma
jorities invariably oppress minorities. Can there be any real
patriotism in a state, which is thus filled with those who ex
ercise and those who suffer tyranny ? But how much less
reason has any man to love that country, in which the voice
of the majority is counterfeited, or the vicious, ignorant, and
needy are the instruments, and the wise and worthy are the
victims of oppression ?

WHEN we talk of patriotism as the theme of declamation,
it is not very material, that we should know with any preci
sion what we mean. It is a subject on which hypocrisy will
seem to ignorance to be eloquent, because all of it will be
received and well received as flattery. If, however, we
search for a principle or sentiment, general and powerful
enough to produce national effects, capable of making a peo
ple act with constancy, or suffer with fortitude, is there any

414 THE DANGERS OF

thing in our situation that could have produced, or that can
cherish it ? The straggling settlements of the Southern part
of the union, which now is the governing part, have been
formed by emigrants from almost every nation of Europe,
Safe in their solitudes alike from the annoyance of enemies
and of government, it is infinitely more probable, that they
"will sink into barbarism than rise to the dignity of national
sentiment and character. Patriotism, to be a powerful or
steady principle of action, must be deeply imbued by edu
cation and strongly impressed both by the policy of the gov
ernment and the course of events. To love our country with
ardour, we must often have some fears for its safety ; our
affection will be exalted in its distress ; and our self-esteem
•will glow on the contemplation of its glory. It is only by
such diversified and incessant exercise, that the sentiment
can become strong in the individual, or be diffused over the
nation.

BUT how can that nation have any such affinities, any sense
of patriotism, whose capacious wilderness receives and se
parates from each other the successive troops of emigrants
from all other nations, men who remain ignorant, or learn
only from the newspapers, that they are countrymen, who
think it their r-ght to be exempted from all tax, restraint, or
control, and, of course, that they have nothing to do with or
for their country, but to make rulers for it, who, after they
are made, are to have nothing to do with their makers — a
country too, which they are sure will not be invaded, and
cannot be enslaved ? Are not the wandering Tartars or Indian
hunters at least as susceptible of patriotism as these strag
glers in our Western forests, and infinitely fonder of glory ?
It is difficult to conceive of a country, which, from the man
ner of its settlement, or the manifest tendencies of its politicks
is more destitute or more incapable of being inspired with
political virtue.

WHAT foundation remains, then, for the hopes of those
\vho expect to see the federalists again invested with power :

AMERICAN LIBERTY. 415

SHALL we be told, that, if the nation is not animated \vith
publick spirit, the individuals are at least fitted to be good
citizens by the purity of their morals? But what are morals
without restraints ? and how will merely voluntary restraints
be maintained ? How long will sovereigns, as the people are
made to fancy they are, insist more upon checks than prero
gatives ? Ask Mr. *** and judge Chase.

BESIDES, in political reasoning it is generally overlooked,
that, if the existence of morals should encourage a people to
prefer a democratick system, the operation of that system
is sure to destroy their morals. Power in such a society
cannot long have any regular control ; and, without control,
it is itself a vice. Is there in human aftairs an occasion of
profligacy more shameless or more contagious than a gene
ral election ? Every spring gives birth and gives wings to
this epidemick mischief. Then begins a sort of tillage, that
turns up to the sun and air the most noxious weeds in the
kindliest soil ; or to speak still more seriously, it is a mortal
pestilence, that begins with rottenness in the marrow. A
democratick society will soon find its morals the incum-
brance of its race, the surly companion of its licentious
joys. It will encourage its demagogues to impeach and per
secute the magistracy till it is no longer disquieted. In a
word, there will not be morals without justice ; and though
justice might possibly support a democracy, yet a democracy
cannot possibly support justice.

ROME was never weary of making laws for that end, and
failed. France has had nearly as many laws as soldiers, yet
never had justice or liberty for one day. Nevertheless, there
can be no doubt, that the ruling faction has often desired to
perpetuate its authority by establishing justice. The diffi
culties, however, lie in the nature of the thing ; for in de
mocratick states there are ever more volunteers to destroy
than to build ; and nothing that is restraint can be erected,
without being odious, nor maintained, if it is. Justice her-

416 THE DANGERS OF

self must be built on a loose foundation, and every villain's
hand is, of course, busy to pluck out the underpinning. In
stead of being the awful power that is to control the -popular
passions, she descends from the height of her temple, and
becomes the cruel and vindictive instrument of them.

FEDERALISM was, therefore, manifestly founded on amis-
take, on the sypposed existence of sufficient political virtue,
and on the permanency and authority of the publick morals.

THE party now in power committed no such mistake.
They acted on the knowledge of what men actually are, not
what they ought to be. Instead of enlightening the popular
understanding, their business was to bewilder it. They knew,
that the vicious, on whom society makes war, would join
them in their attack upon government. They inflamed the
ignorant ; they flattered the vain ; they offered novelty to the
restless; and promised plunder to the base. The envious
were assured, that the great should fall ; and the ambitious,
that they should become great. The federal power, propped
by nothing but opinion, fell, not bacause it deserved its fall, but
because its principles of action were more exalted and pure
than the people could support.

IT is now undeniable, that the federal administration was
blameless. It has stood the scrutiny of time, and passed
unharmed through the ordeal of its enemies. With all the
evidence of its conduct in their possession, and with servile
majorities at their command, it has not been in their power,
much as they desired it, to fix any reproach on their pre
decessors.

IT is the opinion of a few, but a very groundless opinion,
that the cause of order will be re-established by the splitting
of the reigning jacobins ; or, if that should not take place
soon, the union 'will be divided, and the Northern confede
racy compelled to provide for its own liberty. Why, it is
said, should we expect, that the union of the bad will be per
fect, when that of the Washington party, though liberty and
property were at stake, has been broken ? And why should

AMERICAN LIBERTY. 4 IT

it be supposed, that the Northern states, who possess so pro
digious a preponderance of white population, of industry,
commerce, and civilization over the Southern, will remain
subject to Virginia ? Popular delusion cannot last, and as
soon as the opposition of the federalists ceases to be feared,
the conquerors will divide into new factions, and either the
federalists will be called again into power, or the- union will be
severed into two empires.

BY some attention to the nature of a democracy, both these
conjectures, at least so far as they support any hopes of the
publick liberty, will be discredited.

THERE is no society without jacobins ; no free society
without a formidable host of them ; and no democracy, whose
powers they will not usurp, nor whose liberties, if it be not
absurd to suppose a democracy can have any, they will not
destroy. A nation must be exceedingly well educated, in which
the ignorant and the credulous are few. Athens, with all its
wonderful taste and literature, poured them into her popular
assemblies by thousands. It is by no means certain, that a
nation, composed wholly of scholars and philosophers, would
contain less presumption, political ignorance, levity, and extra
vagance than another state, peopled by tradesmen, farmers,
and men of business, without a metaphysician or speculatist
ajnong them. The opulent in Holland were the friends of
those French who subdued their country, and enslaved them.
It was the well-dressed, the learned, or, at least, the conceited
mob of France that did infinitely more than the mere rabble
of Paris, to overturn the throne of the Bourbons. The mul
titude were made giddy with projects of innovation, before
they were armed with pikes to enforce them.

As there is nothing really excellent in our governments, that
is not novel in point of institution, and which faction has not
represented as old in abuse, the natural vanity, presumption,
and restlessness of the human heart have, from the first, afford
ed the strength of a host to the jacobins of our country. The
ambitious desperadoes are the natural leaders of this host.

418 THE DANGERS OF

Now, though such leaders may have many occasions of jea
lousy and discord with one another, especially in the division
of power and booty, is it not absurd to suppose, that any set of
them will endeavour to restore both to the right owners ? Do
we expect a self-denying ordinance from the sons of violence
and rapine ? Are not those remarkably inconsistent with them
selves, who say, our republican system is a government of
justice and order, that was freely adopted in peace, subsists by
morals, and whose office it is to ask counsel of the wise and
to give protection to the good, yet who console themselves in
the storms of the state with the fond hope, that order will
spring out of confusion, because innovators will grow weary of
change, and the ambitious will contend about their spoil. Then
we are to have anew system exactly like the old one, from the
fortuitous concourse of atoms, from the crash and jumble of
all that is precious or sacred in the state. It is said, the popu
lar hopes and fears are the gales that impel the political vessel.
Can any disappointment of such hopes be greater than their
folly ?

IT is true, the men now in power may not be united together
by patriotism, or by any principle of faith or integrity. It is
also true, that they have not, and cannot easily have, a military
force to awe the people into submission. But on the other
hand, they have no need of an army ; there is no army to
oppose them. They are held together by the ties, and made
irresistible by the influence of party. With the advantage of
acting as the government, who can oppose them ? Not the
federalists, who neither have any force, nor any object to
employ it for, if they had. Not any subdivision of their own
faction, because the opposers, if they prevail, will become the
government, so much the less liable to be opposed for their
recent victory ; and if the new sect should fail, they will be
nothing. The conquerors will take care, that an unsuccessful
resistance shall strengthen their domination.

THUS it seems, in every event of the division of the ruling
party, the friends of true liberty have nothing to hope. Tyrants
may thus be often changed, but the tyranny will remain.

AMERICAN LIBERTY. 419

A DEMOCRACY cannot last. Its nature ordains, that its next
change shall be into a military despotism, of all known govern
ments, perhaps, the most prone to shift its head, and the slowest
to mend its vices. The reason is, that the tyranny of what is
called the people, and that by the sword, both operate alike to
debase and corrupt, till there are neither men left with the
spirit to desire liberty, nor morals with the power to sus
tain justice. Like the burning pestilence that destroys the
human body, nothing can subsist by its dissolution but vermin.

A MILITARY government may make a nation great, but it
cannot make them free. There will be frequent and bloody
struggles to decide who shall hold the sword ; but the coir.uc-
ror will destroy his competitors and prevent any permanent
division of the empire. Experience proves, that in all such
governments there is a continual tendency to unity.

SOME kind of balance between the two branches of the Ro
man government had been maintained for several ages, till at
length every popular demagogue, from the two Gracchi to
Cesar, tried to gain favour, and by favour to gain power by
flattering the multitude with new pretensions to power in the
state. The assemblies of the people disposed of every thing;
and intrigue and corruption, and often force disposed of the
votes of those assemblies. It appears, that Cutulus, Cato,
Cicero, and the wisest of the Roman patriots, and perhaps
wiser never lived, kept on, like the infatuated federalists, hop
ing to the last, that the people would see their errour and
return to the safe old path. They laboured incessantly to re
establish the commonwealth ; but the deep corruption of those
times, not more corrupt than our own, rendered that impos
sible. Many of the friends of liberty were slain in the civil
wars ; some, like Lucullus, had retired to their farms ; and
most of the others, if not banished by the people, were without
commands in the army, and, of course, without power in the
state. Catiline came near being chosen consul, and Piso and
Gabinius, scarcely less corrupt, were chosen. A people so
degenerate could not maintain liberty ; and do we find bad
morals or dangerous designs any obstruction to the election of

420 THE DANGERS OF

any favourite of the reigning party ? It is remarkable? that
when by a most singular concurrence of circumstances, after
the death of Cesar, an opportunity was given to the Romans to
re-establish the republick, there was no effective disposition
among the people to concur in that design. It seemed as if
the republican party, consisting of the same class of men as
the Washington federalists, had expired with the dictator.
The truth is, when parties rise and resort to violence, the mo
ment of calm, if one should happen to succeed, leaves little to
wisdom and nothing to choice. The orations of Cicero proved
feeble against the arms of Mark Antony. Is not all this
Apparent in the United States ? Are not the federalists as des
titute of hopes as of power ? What is there left for them to
do ? When a faction has seized the republick, and established
itself in power, can the true federal republicans any longer
subsist ? After having seen the republick expire, will it be
asked, why they are not immortal ?

BUT the reason why such governments are not severed
by the ambition of contending chiefs, deserves further consid
eration.

As soon as the Romans had subdued the kingdoms of Per
seus, Antiochus, and Mithridates, it was necessary to keep on
foot great armies. As the command of these was bestowed
by the people, the arts of popularity were studied by all those,
who pretended to be the friends of the people, and who really
aspired to be their masters. The greatest favourites became
the most powerful generals ; and, as at first there was nothing
which the Roman assemblies were unwilling to give, it ap
peared very soon that they had nothing left to withhold. The
armies disposed of all power in the state, and of the state
itself; and the generals of course assumed the control of the
armies.

IT is a very natural subject of surprise, that, when the Ro
man empire was rent by civil war, as it was, perhaps, twenty
times from the age of Marius and Sylla to that of Constantine,
some competitor for the imperial purple did not maintain him
self with his veteran troops in his province ; and found a new

AMERICAN LIBERTY. 421

dynasty on the banks of the Euphrates or the Danube, the
Ebro or the Rhine. This surprise is augmented by consider
ing the distractions and weakness of an elective government, as
the Roman was ; the wealth, extent, and power of the rebel
lious provinces, equal to several modern first rate kingdoms ;
their distance from Italy ; and the resource that the despair,
and shame, and rage of so many conquered nations would sup
ply on an inviting occasion to throw off their chains and rise
once more to independence ; yet the Roman power constantly
prevailed, and the empire remained one and indivisible. Ser-
torius was as good a general as Pompey ; and it seems strange
that he did not become emperour of Spain. Why were not
new empires founded in Armenia, Syria, Asia Minor, in Gaul
or Britain ? Why, we ask, unless because the very nature of
a military democracy, such as the Roman was, did not permit
it ? Every civil war terminated in the re-union of the provinces,
that a rebellion had for a time severed from the empire.
Britain, Spain, and Gaul, now so potent, patiently continued to
wear their chains, till they dropped off by the total decay of
the Western empire.

THE first conquests of the Romans were made by the su
periority of their discipline. The provinces were permitted
to enjoy their municipal laws, but all political and military
power was exercised by persons sent from Rome. So that
the spirit of the subject nations was broken or rendered im
potent, and every contest in the provinces was conducted, not
by the provincials, but by Roman generals and veteran troops.
These were all animated with the feelings of the Roman de
mocracy. Now a democracy, a party, and an army bear a close
resemblance to each other : they are all creatures of emotion
and impulse. However discordant all the parts of a democracy
may be, they all seek a centre, and that centre is the single
arbitrary power of a chief. In this we see how exactly a de
mocracy is like an army : they are equally governments by
downright force.

A MULTITUDE can be moved only by their passions ; and
these, when their gratification is obstructed, instantly impel

422 THE DANGERS OF

them to arms. Furor anna ministrat. The club is first used,
and then, as more effectual, the sword. The disciplined is
found by the leaders to be more manageable than the mobbish
force. The rabble at Paris that conquered the bastile were
soon formed into national guards. But, from the first to the
last, the nature, and character, and instruments of power re
main the same. A rifie democracy will not long want sharp
tools and able leaders : in fact, though not in name, it is an
army. It is true, an army is not constituted as a deliberative
body, and very seldom pretends to deliberate ; but, whenever it
does, it is a democracy in regiments and brigades, somewhat
the more orderly as well as more merciful for its discipline.
It always will deliberate, when it is suffered to feel its own
power, and is indiscreetly provoked to exert it. At those times,
is there much reason to believe it will act with less good sense,
or with a more determined contempt for the national interest
and opinion, than a giddy multitude managed by worthless
leaders ? Now though an army is not indulged with a vote, it
cannot be stripped of its feelings, feelings that may be managed,
but cannot be resisted. When the legions of Syria or Gaul pre
tended to make an emperour, it was as little in the power as
it was in the disposition of Severus to content himself with
Italy, and to leave those fine provinces to Niger and Albinus.
The military town meeting must be satisfied ; and nothing
could satisfy it but the overthrow of a rival army. If Pompey
before the battle of Pharsalia had joined his lieutenants in
Spain, with the design of abandoning Italy, and erecting Spain
into a separate republick, or monarchy, every Roman citizen
would have despised, and every Roman soldier would have aban
doned him. After that fatal battle, Cato and Scipio never once
thought of keeping Africa as an independent government ; nor
did Brutus and Cassius suppose, that Greece and Macedonia,
which they held with an army, afforded them more than the
means of contesting with Octavius and Antony the dominion
of Rome. No hatred is fiercer than such as springs up among
those who are closely allied and nearly resemble each other.
Every common soldier would be easily made to feel the personal

AMERICAN LIBERTY. 423

insult and the intolerable wrong of another army's rejecting
his emperour and setting up one of their own — not only so,
but he knew it was both a threat and a defiance. The shock
of the two armies was therefore inevitable. It was a sort of
duel, -and could no more stop short of destruction, than the
combat of Hector and Achilles. We greatly mistake the
workings of human nature, when we suppose the soldiers in
such civil wars are mere machines. Hope and fear, love and
hatred, on the contrary, exalt their feelings to enthusiasm.
When Otho's troops had received a check from those of Vitel-
lius, he resolved to kill himself. - His soldiers, with tears, be
sought him to live, and swore they wou-Id perish, if necessary,
in his cause. But he persisted in his purpose, and killed him
self ; and many of his soldiers, overpowered by their grief, fol
lowed his example. Those, whom false philosophy makes
blind, will suppose, that national wars will justify, and, there
fore, will excite all a soldier's ardour ; but that the strife be
tween two ambitious generals will be regarded by all men with
proper indifference. National disputes are not understood, and
their consquences not foreseen, by the multitude ; but a quarrel
that concerns the life, and fame, and authority of a military
favourite takes hold of the heart, and stirs up all the passions.

A DEMOCRACY is so like an army, that no one will be at a
loss in applying these observations. The great spring of action
with the people in a democracy, is their fondness for one set
of men, the men who flatter and deceive, and their outrageous
aversion to another, most probably those who prefer their true
interest to their favour.

A MOB is no sooner gathered together, than it instinctively
feels the want of a leader, a want that is soon supplied. They
may not obey him as long, but they obey him as implicitly, and
will as readily fight and burn, or rob and murder, in his cause,
as the soldiers will for their general.

. As the Roman provinces were held in subjection by Roman
troops, so every American state is watched with jealousy, and
ruled with despotick rigour by the partisans of the faction
that may happen to be in power. The successive struggles,

424 THE DANGERS OF

to which our licentiousness may devote the country, will never
be of state against state, but of rival factions diffused over our
whole territory. Of course, the strongest army, or that which
is best commanded will prevail, and we shall remain subject
to one indivisible bad government.

THIS conclusion may seem surprising to many ; but the
event of the Roman republick will vindicate it on the evidence
of history. After faction, in the time of Marius, utterly oblite
rated every republican principle that was worth anything, Rome
remained a military despotism for almost six hundred years ;
and, as the re-establishment of republican liberty in our coun
try after it is once lost, is a thing not to be expected, what
can succeed its loss but a government by the sword ? It would
be certainly easier to prevent than to retrieve its fall.

THE jacobins are indeed ignorant or wicked enough to say,
a mixed monarchy on the model of the British will succeed the
failure of our republican system. Mr. Jefferson in his famous
letter to Mazzei has shewn the strange condition both of his head
and heart, by charging this design upon Washington and his
adherents. It is but candid to admit, that there are many weak-
minded democrats, who really think a mixed monarchy the next
stage of our politicks. As well might they promise, that,
when their factious fire has burned the plain dwelling-house of
our liberty, her temple will rise in royal magnificence and with
all the proportions of Grecian architecture from the ashes.
It is impossible sufficiently to elucidate, yet one could never
be tired of elucidating the matchless absurdity of this opinion.
An unmixed monarchy, indeed, there is almost no doubt
awaits us ; but it will not be called a monarchy. Cesar lost
his life by attempting to take the name of king. A president,
whose election cannot be hindered, may be well content to
wear that title, which inspires no jealousy, yet disclaims no
prerogative that party can usurp to confer. Old forms may
be continued, till some inconvenience is felt from them ; and
then the same faction that has made them forms, can make
them less, and substitute some new organick decree in their
stead.

AMERICAN LTBERTY. 425

BUT a mixed monarchy would not only offend fixed opin
ions and habits, but provoke a most desperate resistance. The
people, long after losing the substance of republican liberty,
maintain a reverence for the name ; and would fight with en
thusiasm for the tyrant, who has left them the name, and taken
from them every thing else. Who, then, are to set it up ? and
how are they to do it ? Is it by an army ? Where are their sol
diers ? Where are their resources and means to arm and main
tain them ? Can it be established by free popular consent ? Ab
surd. A people once trained to republican principles, will feel
the degradation of submitting to a king. It is far from cer
tain, that their opposition would be soothed, by restricting the
powers of such a king to the one half of what are now enjoyed
by Mr. Jefferson. That would make a difference, but the many
would not discern it. The aversion of a republican nation to
kingship is sincere and warm, even to fanaticism ; yet it has
never been found to exact of a favourite demagogue, who
aspired to reign, any other" condescension than an ostentatious
scrupulousness of regard to names, to appearances, and forms.
Augustus, whose despotism was not greater than his cunning,
professed to be the obsequious minister of his slaves in the
senate ; and Roman pride not only exacted, but enjoyed to the
last, the pompous hypocrisy of the phrase, the majesty of the
Roman commonwealth.

To suppose, therefore, a monarchy established by vote of
die people, by the free consent of a majority, is contrary to the
nature of man and the uniform testimony of his experience.
To suppose it introduced by the disciples of Washington, who
are with real or affected scorn described by their adversaries
as a fallen party, a despicable handful of malecontents, is no
less absurd than inconsistent. The federalists cannot com
mand the consent of a majority, and they have no consular or
imperial army to extort it. Every thing of that sort is on the
side of their foes, and, of course, an unsurmountable obstacle
to their pretended enterprise.

IT will weigh nothing in the argument with some persons,
but with men of sense it will be conclusive, that the mass of
54

426 THE DANGERS OF

the federalists are the owners. of the commercial and monied
wealth of the nation. Is it conceivable, that such men will
plot a revolution in favour of monarchy, a revolution that
would make them beggars as well as traitors, if it should mis
carry ; and, if it should succeed ever so well, would require a
century to take root and acquire stability enough to ensure
justice and protect property ? In these convulsions of the state
property is shaken, and in almost every radical change of gov
ernment actually shifts hands. Such a project would seem
audacious to the conception of needy adventurers who risk no
thing but their lives ; but to reproach the federalists of New-
England, the most independent farmers, opulent merchants,
and thriving mechanicks, as well as pious clergy, with such a
conspiracy, requires a degree of impudence that nothing can
transcend. As well might they suspect the merchants of a
plot to choak up the entrance of our harbours by sinking hulks,
or that the directors of the several bunks had confederated to
blow up the money vaults with gunpowder. The Catos and
the Ciceros are accused of conspiring to subvert the common
wealth — and who are the accusers ? The Clo$i, the Antonies,
and the Catilines.

4

LET us imagine, however, that by some miracle a mixed
monarchy is established, or rather put into operation ; and
surely no man will suppose an unmixed monarchy can possibly
be desired or contemplated by the federalists. The charge
against them is, that they like the British monarchy too well.
For the sake of argument, then, be it the British monarchy.
To-morrow's sun shall rise and gild it with hope and joy, and
the dew of to-morrow's evening shall moisten its ashes. Like
the golden calf, it would be ground to powder before noon.
Certainly, the men, who prate about an American monarchy
copied from the British, are destitute of all sincerity or judg
ment. What could make such a monarchy ? Not parchment—
We are beginning to be cured of the insane belief, that an en
grossing clerk can make a constitution. Mere words, though
on parchment, though sworn to, are wind, and worse than
wind, because they are perjury. What could give eifect to

AMERICAN LIBERTY'. 427

such a monarchy ? It might have a right to command, but
what could give it power ? Not an army, for that would make
it a military tyranny, of all governments the most odious, be
cause the most durable. The British monarchy does not
govern by an army, nor would their army suffer itself to be
employed to destroy the national liberties. It is officered by
the younger sons of noble and wealthy parents, and by many
distinguished commanders who are in avowed opposition to the
ministry. In fact, democratic!;, opinions take root and flourish
scarcely less in armies than in great cities, and infinitely more
than they are found to do, or than it is possible they should in
the cabals of any ruling party in the world.

GREAT BRITAIN, by being an island, is secured from foreign
conquest ;• and by having a powerful enemy within sight of her
shore is kept in sufficient dread of it to be inspired with patrio
tism. That virtue, with all the fervour and elevation that a
society which mixes so much of the commercial with the mar
tial spirit can display, has other kindred virtues in its train ;
and these have had an influence in forming the habits and prin
ciples of action, not only of the English military and nobles,
but of the mass of the nation. There is much, therefore, there
is every thing in that island to blend self-love with love of coun
try. It is impossible, that an Englishman should have fears
for the government without trembling for his own safety. How
different are these sentiments from the immovable apathy of
those citizens, who think a constitution no better than any other
piece of paper, nor so good as a blank on which a more per
fect one could be written 1

Is our monarchy to be supported by the national habits of
subordination and implicit obedience ? Surely, when they hold
out this expectation, the jacobins do not mean to answer for
themselves. Or do we really think it would still be a monarchy,
though we should set up, and put down at pleasure, a town meet
ing king ?

BY removing or changing the relation of any one of the
pillars that support the British government, its identity and
excellence would be lost, a revolution would ensue. When the

428 THE DANGERS OF

house of commons voted the house of peers useless, a tyranny*
of the committees of that body sprang up. The English na
tion have had the good sense, or, more correctly, the good
fortune, to alter nothing, till time and circumstances enforced
the alteration, and then to abstain from speculative innovations.
The evil spirit of metaphy sicks has not been conjured up to
demolish, in order to lay out a new foundation by the line, and
to build upon plan. The present happiness of that nation
rests upon old foundations, so much the more solid, because
the meddlesome ignorance of professed builders has not been
allowed to new lay them. We may be permitted to call it a
matter of fact government. No correct politician will presume
to engage, that the same form of government would succeed
equally well, or even succeed at all, any where else, or even
in England under any other circumstances. Who will dare to
say, that their monarchy would stand, if this generation had
raised it ? Who, indeed,, will believe, if it did stand, that the
weakness produced by the novelty of its institution would not
justify and, even from a regard to self preservation, compel an
almost total departure from its essential principles ?

Now is there one of those essential principles, that it is even
possible for the American people to adopt for their monarchy ?
Are old habits to be changed by a vote, and new ones to be
established without experience ? Can we have a monarchy
without a peerage ? or shall our governours supply that defect
by giving commissions to a sufficient number of nobles of the
quorum ? Where is the American hierarchy ? WThere, above
all, is the system of English law and justice, which would sup
port liberty in Turkey, if Turkey could achieve the impossi
bility of supporting such justice ?

IT is not recollected, that any monarchy in the world was
ever introduced by consent ; nor will any one believe, on reflec
tion, that it could be maintained by any nation, if nothing but
consent upheld it. It is a rare thing, for a people to choose
their government ; it is beyond all credibility, that they will
enjoy the still rarer opportunity of changing it by choice.

AMERICAN LIBERTY. 429

THE notion, therefore, of an American mixed monarchy is
supremely ridiculous. It is highly probable, our country will
be eventually subject to a monarchy, but it is demonstrable
that it cannot be such as the British ; and, whatever it may be,
that the votes of the citizens will not be taken to introduce it.

IT cannot be expected, that the tendency towards a change
of government, however obvious, will be discerned by the mul
titude of our citizens. While demagogues enjoy their favour,
their passions will have no rest, and their judgment and under
standing no exercise. Otherwise, it might be of use to remind
them, that more essential breaches have been made in our
constitution within four years than in the British in the last
hundred and forty. In that enslaved country, every executive
attempt at usurpation has been spiritedly and perseveringly
resisted, and substantial improvements have been made in the
constitutional provisions for liberty. Witness the habeas cor
pus, the independence of the judges, and the perfection, if any
thing human is perfect, of their administration of justice, the
result of the famous Middlesex election, and that on the right
of issuing general search-warrants. Let every citizen who is
able to think, and who can bear the pain of thinking, make the
contrast at his leisure.

THEY are certainly blind who do not see, that we are de
scending from a supposed orderly and stable republican govern
ment into a licentious democracy, with a progress that baffles
all means to resist, and scarcely leaves leisure to deplore its
celerity. The institutions and the hopes that Washington
raised are nearly prostrate ; and his name and memory would
perish, if the rage of his enemies had any power over history.
But they have not — history will give scope to her vengeance,
and posterity will not be defrauded.

BUT, if our experience had not clearly given warning of our
approaching catastrophe, the very nature of democracy would
inevitably produce it.

A GOVERNMENT by the passions of the multitude, or, no
less correctly, according to the vices and ambition of their
leaders, is a democracy. We have heard so long of the inde-

430 THE DANGERS OF

feasible sovereignty of the people, and have admitted so many
specious theories of the rights of man, which are contradicted
by his nature and experience, that few will dread at all, and
fewer still will dread as they ought, the evils of an American
democracy. They will not believe them near, or they will think
them tolerable or temporary. Fatal delusion !

WHEN it is said, there may be a tyranny of the many as well
as of the fe w, every democrat will yield at least a cold and spe
culative assent ; but he will at all times act, as if it were a thing
incomprehensible, that there should be any evil to "be appre
hended in the uncontrolled power of the people. He will say,
arbitrary power may make a tyrant, but how can it make its
possessor a slave ?

IN the first place, let it be remarked, the power of individuals
is a very different thing from their liberty. When I vote for
the man I prefer, he may happen not to be chosen ; or he may
disappoint my expectations, if he is ; or he may be out-voted by
others in the pubiick body to which he is elected. I may, then,
hold and exercise all the power that a citizen can have or enjoy,
and yet such laws may be made and such abuses allowed as shall
deprive me of all liberty. I may be tried by a jury, and that
jury may be culled and picked out from my political enemies
by a federal marshal. Of course, my life and liberty may
depend on the good pleasure of the man who appoints that
marshal. I may be assessed arbitrarily for my faculty, or
upon conjectural estimation of my property, so that all I have
shall be at the control of the government, whenever its displea
sure shall exact the sacrifice. I may be told, that I am a fede
ralist, and, as such, bound to submit, in all cases whatsoever,
to the will of the majority, as the ruling faction ever pretend
to be. My submission may be tested by my resisting or obey
ing commands that will involve me in disgrace, or drive me
to despair. I may become a fugitive, because the ruling-
party have made me afraid to stay at home ; or, perhaps, while
I remain at home, they may, nevertheless, think fit to inscribe
my name on the list of emigrants and proscribed persons.

AMERICAN LIBERTY. 431

ALL this was done in France, and many of the admirers of
French examples are impatient to imitate them. All this
time the people may be told, they are the freest in the world ;
but what ought my opinion to be ? What would the threatened
clergy, the aristocracy of wealthy merchants, as they have
been called already, and thirty thousand more in Massachu
setts, who vote for governour Strong, and whose case might
be no better than mine, what would they think of their condi
tion ? Would they call it liberty ? Surely, here is oppression
sufficient in extent and degree to make the government that
inflicts it both odious and terrible ; yet this and a thousand
times more than this was practised in France, and will be
repeated, as often as it shall please God in his wrath to de
liver a people to the dominion of their licentious passions.

THE people, as a body, cannot deliberate. Nevertheless,
they will feel an irresistible impulse to act, and their resolu
tions will be dictated to them by their demagogues. The con
sciousness, or the opinion, that they possess the supreme pow
er, will inspire inordinate passions ; and the violent men, who
are the most forward to gratify those passions, will be their
favourites. What is called tlie government of the people is
in fact too often the arbitrary power of such men. Here,
then, we have the faithful portrait of democracy. What avails
the boasted fioiver of individual citizens ? or of what value is
the will of the majority, if that will is dictated by a committee
of demagogues, and law and right are in fact at the mercy of
a victorious faction ? To make a nation free, the crafty must
be kept in awe, and the violent in restraint. The weak and
the simple find their liberty arise not from their own indi
vidual sovereignty, but from the power of law and justice
over all. It is only by the due restraint of others, that I am
free.

POPULAR sovereignty is scarcely less beneficent than awful,
when it resides in their courts of justice ; there its office, like
a sort of human providence, is to warn, enlighten, and protect ;
when the people are inflamed to seize and exercise it in their
assemblies, it is competent only to kill and destroy. Tern-

432 THE DANGERS OF

perate liberty is like tlje dew, as it falls unseen from its own
heaven ; constant without excess, it finds vegetation thirsting
for its refreshment, and imparts to it the vigour to take more.
All nature, moistened with blessings, sparkles in the morning
ray. But democracy is a water spout, that bursts from the
clouds, and lays the ravaged earth bare to its rocky foundations.
The labours of man lie whelmed with his hopes beneath
masses of ruin, that bury not only the dead, but their monu
ments.1

IT is the almost universal mistake of our countrymen, that
democracy would be mild and safe in America. They charge
the horrid excesses of France not so much to human nature,
which will never act better, when the restraints of government,
morals, and religion are thrown off, but to the characteristick
cruelty and wickedness of Frenchmen.

THE truth is, and let it humble our pride, the most ferocious
of all animals, when his passions are roused to fury and are
uncontrolled, is man ; and of all governments, the worst is that
which- never fails to excite, but was never found to restrain
those passions, that is, democracy. It is an illuminated hell,
that in the midst of remorse, horrour, and torture, rings with
festivity ; for experience shews, that one joy remains to this
most malignant description of the damned, the power to make
others wretched. When a man looks round and sees his
neighbours mild and merciful, he cannot feel afraid of the
abuse of their power over him : and surely if they oppress me,
he will say, they will spare their own liberty, for that is dear
to all mankind. It is so. The human heart is so constituted,
that a man loves liberty as naturally as himself. Yet liberty is
a rare thing in the world, though the love of it is so universal,

BEFORE the French revolution, it was the prevailing opinion
of our countrymen, that other nations were not free, because
their despotick governments were too strong for the people.
Of course, we were admonished to detest all existing govern
ments, as so many lions in liberty's path ; and to expect
by their downfal the happy opportunity that every emanci
pated people would embrace to secure their own equal rights

AMERICAN LIBERTY. 433

for ever. France is supposed to have had this opportunity,
and to have lost it. Ought we not, then, to be convinced,
that something more is necessary to preserve liberty than to
love it ? Ought we not to see, that, when the people have
destroyed all power but their own, they are the nearest possible
to a despotism, the more uncontrolled for being new, and ten
fold the more cruel for its hypocrisy ?

THE steps by which a people must proceed to change a
government, are not those to enlighten their judgment or to
sooth their passions. They cannot stir without following the
men before them, who breathe fury into their hearts and banish
nature from them. On whatever grounds and under what
ever leaders the contest may be commenced, the revolutionary
work is the same, and the characters of the agents will be
assimilated to it. A revolution is a mine that must explode
with destructive violence. The men who were once peace
able like to carry firebrands and daggers too long. Thus armed,
will they submit to salutary restraint? How will you bring
them to it? Will you undertake to reason down fury? Will
you satisfy revenge without blood ? Will you preach banditti
into habits of self-denial? If you can, and in times of violence
and anarchy, why do you ask any other guard than sober reason
for your life and property in times of peace and order, when,
men are most disposed to listen to it ? Yet even at such times,
you impose restraints ; you call out for your defence the whoio
array of law with its instruments of punishment and terrour;
you maintain ministers to strengthen force with opinion, and
to make religion the auxiliary of morals. With all this, how
ever, crimes are still perpetrated ; society is not any too safe
or quiet. Break down all these fences ; make what is called
law an assassin ; take what it ought to protect, and divide it ;
extinguish by acts of rapine and vengeance the spark of mercy
in the heart ; or, if it should be found to glow there, quench it
in that heart's blood ; make your people scoff at their morals,
and unlearn an education to virtue ; displace the Christian sab
bath by a profane one, for a respite once in ten clays from the
toils of murder, because men, who first shed blood for revenge,
55

434 THE DANCERS OF

mid proceed to spill it for plunder, and in the progress of their
ferocity, for sport, want a festival — what sort of society would
you have ? Would not rage grow with its indulgence ? The
coward fury of a mob rises in proportion as there is less re
sistance ; and their inextinguishable thirst for slaughter grows
more ardent as more blood is shed to slake it. In such a state
is liberty to be gained or guarded from violation ? It could not
be kept an hour from the daggers of those who, having seized
dcspotick power, would claim it as their lawful prize. — •! have
written the history of France. Can we look back upon it with
out terrour, or forward without despair ?

THE nature of arbitrary power is always odious ; but it can
not be long the arbitrary power of the multitude. There is,
probably, no form of rule among mankind, in which the pro
gress of the government depends so little on the particular
character of those who administer it. Democracy is the crea
ture of impulse and violence ; and the intermediate stages
towards the tyranny of one are so quickly passed, that the vile-
ness and cruelty of men are displayed with surprising unifor
mity. There is not time for great talents to act. There is
no sufficient reason to believe, that we should conduct a re
volution with much more mildness than the French. If a
revolution find the citizens lambs, it will soon make them
carnivorous, if not cannibals. We have many thousands of the
Paris and St. Domingo assassins in the United States, not as
fugitives, but as patriots, who merit reward, and disdain to
take any but power. In the progress of our confusion, these
men will effectually assert their claims and display their skill.
There is no governing power in the state but party. The
moderate and thinking part of the citizens are without power
or influence ; and it must be so, because all power and influ
ence are engrossed by a factious combination of men, who
can overwhelm uncombined individuals with numbers, and the
wise and virtuous with clamour and fury.

IT is indeed a law of politicks as well as of physicks, that a
body in action must overcome an equal body at rest. The
attacks that have been made on the constitutional barriers pro-

AMERICAN LIBERTY. 435

claim in a tone that would not be louder from a trumpet, that
party will not tolerate any resistance to its will. All the sup
posed independent orders of the commonwealth must be its
servile instruments, or its victims. We should experience the
same despotism in Massachusetts, New-Hampshire, and Con
necticut, but the battle is not yet won. It will be won ; and
they who already display the temper of their Southern and
French allies, will not linger or reluct in imitating the worst
extremes of their example.

WHAT, then, is to be our condition ?

FACTION will inevitably triumph. Where the government
is both stable and free, there may be parties. There will be
differences of opinion, and the pride of opinion will be suffi
cient to generate contests, and to inflame them with bitterness
and rancour. There will be rivalships among those whom
genius, fame, or station have made great, and these will deep
ly agitate the state without often hazarding its safety. Such
parties will excite alarm, but they may be safely left, like
the elements, to exhaust their fury upon each other.

THE object of their strife is to get power under the govern
ment ; for, where that is constituted as it should be, the power
over the government will not seem attainable, and, of course,
will not be attempted.

BUT in democratick states there will befactio?ifi. The sove
reign power being nominally in the hands of all, will be effec
tively within the grasp of a FEW ; and, therefore, by the very
laws of our nature, a few will combine, intrigue, lie, and fight
to engross it to themselves. All history bears testimony, that
this attempt has never yet been disappointed.

WHO will be the associates ? Certainly not the virtuous, who
do not wish to control the society, but quietly to enjoy its pro
tection. The enterprising merchant, the thriving tradesman,
the careful farmer will be engrossed by the toils of their busi
ness, and will have little time or inclination for the unprofit
able and disquieting pursuits of politicks. It is not the indus
trious, sober husbandman, who will plough that barren field ;
it is the lazy and dissolute bankrupt, who has no other to

436 THE DANGERS OP

plough. The idle, the ambitious, and the needy will band
together to break the hold that law has upon them, and then
to get hold of law. Faction is a Hercules, whose first labour
is to strangle this lion, and then to make armour of his skin. In
every clemocratick state the ruling faction will have law to keep
down its enemies ; but it will arrogate to itself an undisputed
power over law. If our ruling faction has found any impedi
ments, we ask, which of them is now remaining ? And is it not
absurd to suppose, that the conquerors will be contented with
half the fruits of victory ?

WE are to be subject, then, to a desfiotick faction, irritated
by the resistance that has delayed, and the scorn that pursues
their triumph, elate with the insolence of an arbitrary and un
controllable domination, and who will exercise their sway, not
according to the rules of integrity or national policy, but in
conformity with their own exclusive interests and passions.

THIS is a state of things, which admits of progress, but not
of reformation : it is the beginning of a revolution, which must
advance. Our affairs, as first observed, no longer depend on
counsel. The opinion of a majority is no longer invited or
permitted to control our destinies, or even to retard their con
summation. The men in power may, and, no doubt, will give
place to some other faction, who will succeed, because they
are abler men, or, possibly, in candour we say it, because they
are worse. Intrigue will for some time answer instead of
force, or the mob will supply it. But by degrees force only
will be relied on by those who are in, and employed by those
who are out. The vis major will prevail, and some bold
chieftain will conquer liberty, and triumph and reign in her
name.

YET, it is confessed we have hopes, that this event is not
very near. We have no cities as large as London or Paris ;
und, of course, the ambitious demagogues may find the ranks
of their STANDING ARMY too thin to rule by them alone. It
is also worth remark, that our mobs are not, like those of
Europe, excitable by the cry of no bread. The dread of fam
ine is every where else a power of political electricity, that

AMERICAN LIBERTY. 437

glides through all the haunts of filth, and vice, and want in a
city with incredible speed, and in times of insurrection rives
and scorches with a sudden force, like heaven's own thunder.
Accordingly, we find the sober men of Europe more afraid of
the despotism of the rabble than of the government.

BUT, as in the United States we see less of this description
of low vulgar, and as, in the essential circumstance alluded
to, they are so much less manageable by their demagogues,
we are to expect, that our affairs will be long guided by court
ing the mob, before they are violently changed by employing
them. While the passions of the multitude can be conciliated
to confer power and to overcome all impediments to its action,
our rulers have a plain and easy task to perform. It costs
them nothing but hypocrisy. As soon, however, as rival fa
vourites of the people may happen to contend by the practice
of the same arts, we are to look for the sanguinary strife of
ambition. Brissot will fall by the hand of Danton, and he will
be supplanted by Robespiere. The revolution will proceed
in exactly the same way, but not with so rapid a pace, as that
of France.

[ 438 ]

HINTS AND CONJECTURES

CONCERNING

THE INSTITUTIONS OF LYCURGUS.

WRITTEN IN 1805.

JL H E institutions of Lycurgus have engrossed, and, perhaps,
have deserved the praises of all antiquity. Even the Athenians,
the rivals and enemies of Sparta, do not withhold or stint their
admiration of .the sublime genius and profound wisdom of this
legislator. Such a general concurrence of opinions, and for
so many ages, in favour of the laws of Lycurgus, can scarcely
be imagined to proceed from errour, accident, or caprice.

WHEN to this we add, that for seven hundred years the
Lacedaemonian state continued to respect, if not rigidly to ob
serve, these laws, we are not permitted at this late day to
arraign their wisdom, especially by attempting to ridicule their
singularity. We are the less authorized to pronounce their
condemnation, as the ancients have taken more pains to make
them appear admirable than intelligible. A complete and sa
tisfactory view of the Spartan policy, if any such were exhibited
of old, has not reached our times. Besides, so unlike are our
manners and institutions to those of Greece, and particularly
of Sparta, that the representations of Xenophon, Aristotle,
Polybius, and Plutarch, though amply sufficient for the infor
mation of their countrymen, cannot fail to appear defective and
obscure to us.

THE chief articles of the system of Lycurgus seem so much
more extraordinary than any thing else that has happened in
the world, except their political consequences, that we should
be induced to deny the facts, if the historical evidence of them
were not complete. As we are not permitted to do this, we sub
mit to the authority of history, with a sort of vague and unin-
structed astonishment at the strangeness of its testimony.

THE INSTITUTIONS OF LYCURGUS. 439

SPARTA or Laceclaemon, ancient writers tell us, was rent
with factions, one of the two kings being at the head of each,
without laws, and so deeply corrupted, that neither morals nor
manners could supply their place. In this exigency Lycurgus
appeared, and by his genius took the ascendant over the kings
and demagogues, and, indeed, over all the men of his age and
nation, as the pasture oak towers above the shrubs, or like a
giant among dwarfs. The oracle of Delphi gave him, more
over, all the authority that superstition can maintain over igno
rance. Thus far all is easy of comprehension.

BUT, when we are required to believe, that a whole people
readily submitted to give up their property to be divided anew ;
that they renounced luxury, ostentation, and pleasure, and even
the use of money, except iron ; that they were obliged, under
severe penalties, from which their kings were not exempted,
to dine in publick and on wretched fare ; that their children
were taken from them and exposed to death, if adjudged weakly
and infirm, or, if permitted to live, placed under the tutelage
of publick officers ; and that such was the intolerable rigour of
their regulations, that actual service in camp was a welcome
relaxation — when we read all this, surely, if there is nothing to
justify our doubts, there is nothing that can suppress our
wonder. We yield our faith at once, that the Lacedaemonians
immediately became a nation of heroes, who had extinguished
nature, and silenced appetite and passion, save only the passion
to live and die for their country.

BY this expedient we make the Spartan story somewhat
more credible. As we can know nothing of what demigods
would do, we may imagine just what we please. But men now
adays, we are sure, would not be brought to adopt such laws,
nor, if they did, long to observe them.

NEVERTHELESS, we know, that the success of the system of
Lycurgus did not arise from the superiority of his race of
Spartans. On the contrary, so far were they from being su-
periour to other men, that he found them, we are told, worse.
This we are forced to believe ; for he found them factious—
and faction, we know, is as sure to degrade and corrupt the

140 THE INSTITUTIONS

citizens as to bewilder and inflame them. Indeed he left
them as he found them, and as they are represented by all an
tiquity, faithless, ferocious, and cruel, yet loving their country
with an ardour of passion and with a disregard of justice, that
made it hateful and terrible to the rest of mankind.

WE are driven back, then, to consider how men, and very
bad men, could be prevailed on to establish, and, what is still
more surprising, for many hundred years to maintain such
self-denying and odious institutions. It would be absurd to
suppose, that the enthusiasm kindled by Lycurgus spread so far
and lasted so long. This sort of fire, which seldom catches any
thing but light combustibles, only flashes and expires. We
find, on the contrary, that the institutions of Lycurgus had a
sort of awful authority to fix the popular caprice and over
come their disgust, to charm their sages and animate their
heroes, to form the manners and control the policy of the na
tion for many ages. The mere popularity of his system would
not have lasted for a year ; and though superstition might do
much, nature in the end would do more, and resume her
violated rights. So many painful exercises, such endless and
unsuiferable privations and constraints would soon exhaust
the patience of the most passive wretches that ever existed.
It was said, with almost as much truth as wit, by the Athenian
Alcibiades: "no wonder the Spartans cheerfully encounter
death — it is a welcome relief to them from such a life as they
are obliged to lead."

IT is, therefore, after all, extremely difficult to conceive,
that the discipline of this famous legislator was intended for
the body of the inhabitants of the city of Lacedsemon, much
less for the whole country of Laconia, or that it was ever so
applied. Human nature has not changed for the worse by
the lapse of twenty six hundred years ; and we may venture to
say, that there is no people now on the face of the earth, who
could be persuaded or forced to submit to such a discipline.

THE Jews, it is true, adopted a very singular body of laws ;
but it is equally true, that they were infinitely less obnoxious
to the sentiments and feelings of nature than those of Lycur-

OF LYCURGUS. 441

gus. It is also true, that, under the immediate government
of God himself, manifested by signs and wonders, by awful
warnings and signal punishments, the Hebrews repeatedly
yielded to their natural repugnance, and departed from the
law of Moses. Yet Lycurgus, without any divine, and even
without the regal authority in Sparta, is commonly supposed,
not only to have wielded the political power of the state, a
thing not in the least difficult to suppose, but to have changed
or extinguished the inclinations of every Lacedaemonian heart,
and to have substituted in their stead a passion for self-denial,
restraint, and suffering.

YET all the writers of antiquity represent the discipline of
Lycurgus, no less than his political constitution, as being in
full force over all the citizens ; that food, dress, sports, con
versation, and even the intercourse of the sexes, were restrict
ed by law ; in short, that a system of regulations unspeakably-
more minute, vexatious, disgusting, and tyrannical than we
find prescribed for the fraternity of La Trappe, or the monks
of the order of St. Francis, was inflexibly imposed on a nation,
and quietly obeyed for many ages. All this may, possibly, be
true ; and we must yield our belief, if we cannot help it ; but
it would be almost as hard to command our faith in this extent
of the story, as our obedience to the laws of Sparta.

IN this exigency, and with this hard alternative before us, it
is hoped, that those who are profoundly versed in classick
learning will not deem it treason against the ancients, if we
propose some HINTS AND CONJECTURES tending to throw
light upon the subject, and which, if well grounded, may some
what better reconcile the long-unquestioned miracles of Spar
tan legislation with common sense and the unchangeable uni
formity of the human character.

Now, though it is inconceivable, that a whole nation should
submit to the numberless, endless, intolerable vexations and
rigours of the Spartan discipline, it is by no means incredible,
that two or three thousand of them should. The wandering
Tartars who live encamped in tents might, possibly, be sub
jected to a pretty strict military regulation j although it is
56

442 THE INSTITUTIONS

certain; that they are not ; but a people dispersed over a whole
territory, living in houses, and cherishing, as from their situa
tion they must, the delights that a fixed home affords, cannot
be made monks, and be cut off from society, while they are
suffered to remain warm in its bosom.

WHY, then, are we not permitted to suppose, that the sys
tem of Lycurgus, so far as it regulated the meals, education,
dress, and indifferent actions of the citizens, was made for a
particular class^ and enforced only upon them, and not upon
the mass of the free inhabitants ; that this class was formed
exclusively of the Spartan, or noble families ; that the object
of this system was not, as is generally believed, by changing
or expelling human nature, to raise a whole nation above it,
but to raise a governing aristocracy above that nation. To
illustrate the conjecture, may we not imagine these Spartans
to have been to the rest of the free citizens of the state in point
of rank, privilege, power, and numbers, what the knights of
St. John lately were to the people of Malta. It is probable,
there was a system of education extremely rigid for the nobles ;
and a system of discipline for the national militia quite distinct
from the former. Lycurgus distributed the lands to these
latter in thirty nine thousand lots, or shares, of which less than
five thousand were assigned to the citizens of Sparta. Now,
as we read of no education of the youth according to the rules
of Lycurgus out of that city, \ve can scarcely refrain from adopt
ing both the before mentioned conjectures, viz. that the famous
plan of Spartan education was only for the nobles or their sons
who were in the city ; and that the military system, if there was
one, which we cannot doubt, was distinct from it, and embrac
ed the whole feudal tenants or national militia.

ADMITTING these suppositions to be well grounded, our
difficulties disappear at once.

THE rules for a patrician academy, and for a fixed militia,
though severe, might be enforced by the pubiick authority.
The former had power' and rank, and the latter had lands to
stimulate and reward their obedience. The very circumstance
of setting apart a ckss of young men for the noblest of all pro-

OF LYCURGUS. 443

fessions, the profession of arms, would naturally inspire the
young Spartans with the esprit clu corps, with the lofty pride
that would more cheerfully seek than shun the occasions to
make efforts and sacrifices. In framing the rules for the edu
cation and discipline of this noble class, there was ample scope
for the genius of Lycurgus, and for the display of his deep
insight into the secrets of the human heart. Instead of extin
guishing nature, and acting, as it is generally thought he did,
without means, or, at least, without any that we can believe to
be adequate, he had only to act with the aid of one of the
strongest passions, and to apply that love of distinction, which
is one of the most powerful agents in the transactions of man
kind. Hence it was, that every Sjiartan thought it better not
to live at all than live a coward. Hence, Leonidas and his
little troop, at Thermopylae, did all that human nature could
do — but they did no more ; no more than British sailors do
now ; no more than American sailors are capable of doing, and
will certainly do, whenever our government shall feel some
what of their spirit. The military character, which causes a
generous devotion of life to honour, is no prodigy : it is the
familiar business of every day of modern warfare.

ON examining these conjectures of the restricted, instead of
the universal, application of the discipline of Lycurgus, their
conformity with the known laws of human action, will afford
ground to admit them, as at least plausible. Let us review the
history of the Lacedaemonians, and see, if we cannot find mat
ter of corroboration.

LESS than one hundred years after the war of Troy, the
descendants of Hercules, who had been exiled, and in a long
course of years had greatly increased in numbers, renewed the
attempt to recover possession of the Peloponnesus. With the
assistance of a body of Dorians, then the most ferocious bar
barians in all Greece, they succeeded, expelled most of the
inhabitants, who took refuge in Attica and on the coast of Asia
Minor, as well as in the islands of the Ionian sea. The He-
raclidae subverted the thrones of the princes of the Peloponne-
sian states, seized on the lands for themselves and such ef

444 THE INSTITUTIONS

their Dorian allies as chose to remain with them, and'reduo
ed to slavery such of the old stock of inhabitants as did not
betake themselves to flight. Two sons of Aristodemus, of
the race of Hercules, were placed on the throne of Lace^
daemon.

IT is well known, that Hercules for his exploits was deified j
and, as long as paganism was the popular religion of Greece*
which it continued to be fifteen hundred years after this event,
his name was adored with the most enthusiastick devotion.
He was most emphatically the hero and the deity of the Greeks.
Now, as the return of the Heraclidae caused one of the most
thorough and sweeping revolutions recorded in all history, so
complete as in a great measure to change the inhabitants, and
entirely to change the governing classes, and as they came
back to Peloponnesus with the double claim of being conquer
ors and the progeny of a god, it is plain, there was a patrician,
heaven-descended class existing in the state long before the
age of Lycurgus, engrossing to themselves a great part of the
lands, and all the powers and advantages of the government.

IT- is impossible to say positively, whether this class consist
ed only of the race of Hercules, or whether it included also
some of the chiefs of the Dorians. As Lycurgus is said to be
only the tenth in descent from Hercules, the Heraclidae, though
sufficiently numerous for an order of nobility, could have been
scarcely numerous enough to keep the remains of a conquered
people in subjection. It is probable, that a large part of the
holders of the conquered lands were not of that heroick race.
This is the more readily to be supposed, as Laconia is repre
sented in very early times as a populous country, and contain
ing a hundred cities. These, no doubt, were inconsiderable
towns ; yet, after allowing for a very great emigration in con
sequence of the conquest, we may believe, that the native
inhabitants still outnumbered their conquerors. The descen
dants of Hercules, being princes, were exclusively allowed the
command of the armies, the exercise of all the powers of
government, and their hereditary rank as an order of nobles,
afterwards called, by way of distinction, Sfiartans. The rest

OF LYCtTRGUS. 445

of the citizens, who became distinguished by~the appellation
of Lacedaemonians, were the conquering soldiery, to whom
lands were assigned in reward for their past services, and as a
pledge of their future obedience. Thus, we may believe, a
governing aristocracy and a national militia, in subordination
to that body, were called into existence at the time and by the
circumstances of the conquest.

IT is also to be remembered, that all the governments of
Greece were originally formed by the confederacy of cities ;
and in all of them the capital city aspired to the chief, and in
every case where it was practicable, to the sole authority over
the rest. In several of the confederacies this ambitious pro
ject was resisted with success. But in the earliest antiquity
and immediately after the return of the Heraclidae, we learn,
that Sparta was chosen as the residence of the kings and seat
of government, and that the domination of that city was stretch
ed over all the towns of Laconia. Helos alone resisted and
was subdued ; and its inhabitants were reduced to a sort of
qualified slavery, by which they were fixed to the soil as pea
sants to labour for their Spartan landlords. Now, as Sparta
governed the state, and the aristocracy governed Sparta, for
the kings, except in time of war, were cyphers, we cannot
hesitate to admit, that these nobles were chiefly collected as
residents in the city of Sparta. The very fact, that there were
two kings, must have annihilated their authority, if any had
been intrusted to them. That circumstance and every other
that has been transmitted to us by history proves, that the gov
ernment was in the hands of an aristocracy.

HENCE we discern the best reasons in the world, why Ly-
curgus did, and Solon did not establish an aristocracy. Neither
of them could create or annihilate the materials of their re
spective governments. The people of Attica, who called
themselves with no little vanity, uvro^ove^ or the original peo
ple, constituted a democracy, which could not be forced, and
would not be persuaded to establish a body of governing nobles.
Lycurgus, on the contrary, found a numerous and powerful
race of the first conquerors, outnumbered by slaves who were

446 THE INSTITUTIONS

kept in subjection by an aristocracy with two kings at their
head. Accordingly, it seems to have been the utmost extent
of his undertaking, to new model the government rather than
the nation. The aristocracy was itself in danger of degenerat
ing into an oligarchy, and was exposed to perish by its own
inevitable factions, as well as by the silent growth and conse
quent encroach ments of the unprivileged classes of the citizens.
Already the extreme disorders of the state portended convul
sions and revolution.

IN this emergency he devised such expedients as would
give, not liberty to the people, which seems not to have been
in the least degree his concern, but stability and perpetuity to
the aristocracy. He formed, or, perhaps, only revived a senate
of twenty eight members, elected for life by the numerous
body of the noble Spartans. These Sjiartans had also their
assemblies monthly, in which they exercised very important
functions of the government. Thus two bodies were formed,
who may be thought to bear some resemblance to the houses
of lords and commons in England.

HAVING thus placed the government in the hands of the
Spartans, much was still necessaiy to enable them to maintain
it. In that age pre-eminence could neither be gained, nor se
cured by commerce or arts, but only by arms. Here, then, we
see the obvious necessity of the case, that/ Lycurgus should,
by his system of education and his discipline, make these
Spartans really superiour to the men they governed. This
was the more necessary, as we are informed by ancient writers,
that they were detested by the rest of the inhabitants.

THIS being admitted, and it can scarcely be denied, we can
no longer so much as conceive, that it was the policy or any
part of the plan of Lycurgus to include all the free citizens
of Laconia, or even of the city of Sparta, in his great system
of education. It was his object to establish an incontestible
superiority in favour of the Spartans. By infusing into the
other citizens the pride and desperate fanaticism of the nobles,
the former, being also perfectly well trained to arms, would

OP LYCURGUS. 447

have been as incapable of submission and as capable of rule as
their superiours.

ADMITTING that nothing is so much for the interest of a
class of men as power, and they are very apt to think that no
thing is, then surely nothing could be more for the interest of
the aristocracy than the laws of Lycurgus, for in consequence
of them they maintained their authority over the state for many
ages. The power of the Roman patricians was from the first
balanced, imperfectly enough we confess, by the people ; but
the whole power of the Lacedaemonian state was engrossed by
the Sfiartans. Until the establishment of the ephori, one hun
dred and thirty years after Lycurgus, it does not appear, that,
in respect to political power, there was any other people : the
rest of the inhabitants of Laconia and Sparta were nothing.

IF Lycurgus met with infinite difficulty in getting his laws
established, it is certain he had vast means of influence in the
pride and ambition of the nobles, who were so greatly inte
rested in their adoption. In so great a length of time as had
elapsed since the return of the Heraclidx, many of these no
bles, and probably still more of the soldiery, had diminished or
alienated their original lots of land. The poor members of
the aristocracy and of the militia would, of course, insist upon
restoring the ancient division of lands by a new assignment.
Lycurgus, knowing that power follows property, and especially
property in lands, and intending to prevent all rivalship with
the aristocracy by giving to that body and their military depen
dants a monopoly of the lands, was inclined and enabled to
restore the original division.

IT cannot be believed, that, without such reasons and helps,
he could have originated a plan for an arbitrary assignment of
the territory. On the contrary, it may be fairly presumed, that
very few, and those great proprietors, were dispossessed, and
very many were accommodated. By thus creating a stock of
popularity with one class of men, and those the most nume
rous, he could use it to compel the submission of another and
the most refractory. This, we arc informed, is precisely what

448 THE INSTITUTIONS

he did. Thus he established a perpetual fund for the support
of this ruling aristocracy.

THAT it might be perpetual, he made the lands unalienable,
though inheritable ; he proscribed all trade, manufactures, and
luxury, and even gold and silver coins. He foresaw, that in
dustry and trade would bring in wealth ; and that wealth would
confer distinction. In this event the military spirit would de
cline, and the unprivileged orders of the state would rise into
importance. To guard against this disturbance of the opera
tion of his system, he exerted all his great abilities to provide
every political expedient possible to keep Sparta poor and
warlike.

IT will never be imagined, when he gave the purse to one
set of men, or, in other words, all the lands to the aristocracy
and the military, that he gave the sword to another set. On
the contrary, we shall find, that he established a complete mo
nopoly of power and property in favour of the Sfiartans. It
has been already observed, that this governing order resided
chiefly in the city ; and that we no where read of a Spartan
education out of it. The inhabitants of Laconia, we are told,
were deemed inferiour to those of the city, not having the same
education.

ARE we to suppose, that the inhabitants of even the city of
Sparta, or all such as were free, were indiscriminately fed at the
publick tables, and daily subjected to the whole discipline of Ly-
curgus ? Even this is incredible. It cannot be imagined, that the
landholders, of whom the number in Sparta and its immediate
territory was at first nine thousand, were thus assembled and
fed. If we take half that number for the city alone, we shall
not readily admit, that they were educated and trained in this
manner.

WE should confine our calculation to the noble Spartans
only ; for Sparta was undoubtedly a great city, though we
know not the extent of its population. But, as it contained
inhabitants enough, though wholly unfortified and without
walls, twice to repulse Epaminondas with his victorious army,
we may reckon Sparta to be equal to Thebes or Athens. It

OP LYCURGUS. 449

was accounted one of the great cities of Greece, and might
have fifty or sixty thousand inhabitants, certainly ten times too
many to be fed in the publick halls or in the barracks. As the
landholders were a militia, and not a regular standing army, it
is on that account the less to be admitted, that they were daily
drawn out, exercised, and fed. Xenophon says, he has seen
five thousand Lacedaemonians assembled together, and was
scarcely able to pick out thirty Spartans. The Lacedecmo-
nian armies often marched on expeditions with less than one
hundred of this order.

THIS distinction was not merely nominal ; if it had been, it
would have soon disappeared from its frivolousness ; and it
must have been frivolous to the last degree, if these Spartans
had not received a different sort of education, and claimed a
very superiour rank and authority in the state. When one
hundred and thirty Sjiartans were shut up and besieged in the
little island of Sphacteria, the government was extremely agi
tated, and offered to make the most extraordinary concessions
to Athens to procure the release of these men. To the aris
tocracy, their destruction seemed like a dismemberment of
their body.

THIS governing class, being also the fighting class, was
continually diminishing. On the defeat of the Lacedemonians
at Leuctra, the government was thrown into the deepest con
sternation, because so unusual a number of Sfiartans and the
king Cleombrotus were slain. They saw with pain and ter-
rour the reduction of the numbers, and the proportionate re
duction of the influence and power of their order.

IT may after all be said, although these facts prove, that all
the free inhabitants of Sparta were not Spartans, yet it still re
mains a question, whether all the former did not receive the
strict education prescribed by Lycurgus.

IT is true, there is no express evidence to that point ; but
we may take these facts as evidence of the spirit of the govern
ment, and conclusive evidence, that from its very nature it
could have no other spirit. That being premised, it would be
truly surprising, that the strict discipline and education of the
57

450 THE INSTITUTIONS

great legislator should be enforced upon all the citizens. As
u common education makes men, could it be, that a Spartan
education, which made heroes, was lavished upon the trades
men of the city ; (for the necessary trades were allowed from
the first, and, no doubt, many more had got footing there,)
upon the strangers, who might happen to reside in the city ;
and, above all, upon the numerous description of the sons of
Helots, who had been made free for their services to the
state ?

As a mortal hatred subsisted between those freedmen and
the nobles, it cannot be allowed, that these latter had permitted,
much less required, an exact equality as to the use of arms
and every admired accomplishment that could be derived from
education. On that supposition, ten or twenty thousand base-
born heroes would have snatched the sway from the hands of
less than one thousand heaven-descended heroes of the blood
of Hercules. The education that conferred glory and distinc
tion, for its chief object was to make every thing else seem
vile, would have made power tempting, too tempting to remain
for ages within reach, yet untouched.

ON these grounds we seem to be authorized to conclude, that
the Spartan education and discipline were not imposed on all
the free inhabitants, although the language used by all the
ancient writers on the subject scarcely admits of their restric
tion to the noble and military classes. Polybius, who is as
remarkable for his gravity as for his good sense, warmly ex
claims in praise of Lycurgus, as a sort of divinity, who had
created a nation anew by his system of education.

WE may conjecture, that the noble class, being the only
one that attracted much notice, was put for the nation ; or it
might be, that, while the sons of the nobles were educated by
the state, great numbers of an inferiour order were trained as
soldiers ; and these distinctions being known to every body in
the time of Xenophon, were not deemed to require a minute
explanation. However that may be, Herodotus, whose notion
of the universality of the Spartan system seems to be like that
of all succeeding writers, uses an expression, that will coun-

OF LYCURGUS. 451

lenance our restriction of it, as we have before suggested.
Giving an account of the dignity of the Spartan kings, he says :
" if they dine at the publick feasts, as they are obliged to do,
unless specially excused, they are allowed a double portion of
the food, as also if they are feasted by a private citizen"
How could a private citizen invite a Spartan king to dine with
him, if he were himself obliged to dine in the publick hall ?
May we not, then, infer from this passage of Herodotus, that
the citizens of Sparta dined and supped in their own houses ?

THAT the regulations of Lycurgus for the education of
youth, and for convening the citizens at the publick meals,
were not extended to all the inhabitants of the city of Sparta
and its territory, may be inferred from some of the facts trans
mitted to us by Xenophon and Plutarch. When a male child
was born, and, after being examined by publick officers, pro
nounced sound and worth the bringing up, one of the nine
thousand lots was immediately assigned to him. Now, if a
tradesman's, a slave's, or a stranger's son should happen to be
born of as good a shape as a noble Spartan's, is it to be suppos
ed, a lot would be given to the former and refused to the
latter, who might come into the world the day after they were
all disposed of. A populous city, like Sparta, would have
more healthy male children than lots. But supposing the dis
tribution confined to the continually diminishing military class
of Spartans, there would be more lots than children ; and this
was in fact the case. The lands assigned as a fund for the
military class, proved more than sufficient for the number of
Spartans. Supposing it liable to be absorbed by other chil
dren, it would not only have proved insufficient, but it would
have been employed to defeat its original use and destination,
to raise the degraded classes, and to stint or starve the military
class.

ANOTHER fact is worth observation. At the messes or
tables of the publick meals, which, we are told, admitted
fifteen, no person was received without the consent of the
whole company. Can we, then, suppose for a moment, the
law required every inhabitant to eat at these tables, and yet

452 THE INSTITUTIONS

authorized every citizen to exclude him ? Where was he to
dine ? And where, let it be asked, were those persons to dine,
who, having lost their arms, or turned their backs in battle,
were stigmatized and shunned by all citizens ?

AGAIN, we are told, the very children were obliged to attend
those meals, because they heard only wise and solid discourse
on such occasions. If the ignorant, sordid rabble of a great
city were really seated at those tables, will any man think, that
Lycurgus himself, if he had lived as long as his institutions,
could have kept order I or that, without a miraculous inspira
tion, as often as the tables were spread, the conversation could
have been edifying ? It is incredible and absurd.

THE sons of noble Spartans were, no doubt, educated by the
state, were kept in an academy, dined and supped together,
and, probably, it was the official duty of the kings to superin
tend their education. They were trained, not as citizens, but
us rulers ; not simply as soldiers, but as generals. To perpe
tuate the aristocracy, the government took care to exclude
accident, caprice, and folly as much as possible from all in
fluence on the young nobles. It is obvious, that the stability
of the government depended on its transmitting its peculiar
identity of perfection from generation to generation. All this
makes it natural, that the rulers should be educated by the state,
and that the citizens who had only to obey, should not be. This
idea derives some further force from the observation of Plu
tarch, who says: u the chief object of Lycurgus being a sys
tem of education, and to establish habits and manners, he would
not permit his laws to be reduced to writing." This can hard
ly be supposed, if they were intended for a whole nation. The
class of Spartans, though amounting to several thousands ori
ginally, were reduced in the time of Xenophon to about seven
hundred ; and even of these the greater part were in a state of
poverty. Agis and Cleomenes, two kings of Lacedxmon, suc-
cessively attempted to restore the strict discipline of Lycurgus.
Plutarch informs us, that Cleomenes, when attempting to en
force a new division of the lands, alleged in recommendation
of the measure, that it would provide means for admitting

OF LYCURGU8. 453

foreigners of merit to citizenship. The state in that case, he
said, would no longer want defenders, alluding to the reduced
number of Sfiartans. This government had ever been to the
last degree averse from granting citizenship, precisely because
the exclusive possessors of power are ever unwilling to admit
partners. Now, if there were many thousand able-bodied brave
men in Sparta, as Cleomenes knew there were, for he led a
gallant army of them into the field, why did he lament the want
of defenders of the state ? Why did he speak of admitting
foreigners to take lands and become citizens, when it was so
easy a thing to raise Lacedxmonians to be Spartans, especially
too if they had received the same publick education ? Tt is
however evident from this passage of Plutarch, that they had
not received such an education, that they did not hold so high
a rank in the state, and that it could not be gratuitously con
ferred upon them. Noble foreigners might be made citizens
without any degradation of the Spartan pride ; but the admis
sion of the plebeian inhabitants of Sparta to a higher rank would
be a source both of individual mortification and of publick dis
order : the partition between ranks would be broken down.

WE shall be further confirmed in our opinion of the ex
clusive aristocratical policy of the Spartan government by a
closer observation of its effects.

IN the Lacedaemonian state there were two descriptions of
slaves, the Helots, who were an oppressed, degraded peasan
try, the cultivators of the soil on a fixed rent for their Spartan
landlords ; and the domestick slaves, who were treated with
still greater rigour. These two classes are supposed to have
amounted to nearly one half the population. The free citizens
may be also placed in two classes, the Spartans and the Lace
dxmonians. These latter must at all times have greatly ex
ceeded the Spartans in number, yet by the original plan of
Lycurgus their political power was next to nothing.

THE kings and their wives, the senators and all magistrates,
except the ephori, and it is believed all military officers of
high rank, must have been Spartans. The Spartans were
electors also of the senators for life ; but, as the choice was

454 THE INSTITUTIONS

determined by a computation of the number of suffrages by
the noise of the acclamations, in favour of a candidate, it may be
conjectured, the senate in effect filled up the vacancies in its
own body. A Spartan assembly was held once a month. Thus,
we see, the pow;ers of government were engrossed by a senate,
and its dignities and privileges by an hereditary aristocracy.

THERE was indeed a general assembly of the Lacedemonian
nation to determine on peace, war, and alliances. To this
assembly deputies from the several cities and from the allied
states were admitted. Yet, as it was convened at Sparta, as its
objects concerned chiefly the external policy, and as the effec
tive government was in the hands of the aristocracy, it was not,
found to disturb or divide their monopoly of power.

To perpetuate this order of tilings, Lycurgus was not more
solicitous by his institutions to elevate one class, than to depress
and disarm every other. We must repeat it, for this reason
it wus, he forbad all arts, except such as could not be dispensed
with ; even learning itself was denied its honours ; he did not
allow his Spartans to travel into foreign countries, nor foreign
ers to be admitted to Sparta ; he interdicted trade, luxury, and
gold and silver ; he would have his Spartans wholly intent on
military distinction : arms and only arms should confer glory.
His Spartans did not labour themselves, but the Helots labour
ed for them. Not only was the monopoly of power complete,
but the roots and seeds of future rivalship by the depressed
classes of the society seemed to be exterminated.

HERE let us pause to make a reflection. For more than
two thousand years the world has been loud and violent in its
pane gy rick of Spartan -virtue, because Lycurgus had bestowed
all possible care to make his nobles brave, without having
employed the least to make them honest ; because he had
made them love power better than labour ; because they lOved
their country, while they owned and governed it ; and because,
when riches did not command honour, and titled poverty did,
they sought honour in the only way in which it was to be had,
and held that preferable which every body in that age actually
preferred. Spartan virtue did not, most certainly, include

OF LYCURGUS. 455

morals. The Roman Cincinnatus was proud of his birth,
and, probably, much the prouder for his poverty. It is not
at this degenerate day at all essential to the glory of a great
general, that he should have a great estate.

EFFECTUAL as for some ages this policy of Lycurgus was,
time and the revolution of human affairs at length gradually
subverted it. The depressed classes of the state slowly rose
from the ground, and from the feet of the aristocracy, and
claimed and took their station in society.

IT may be supposed, the Spartans exacted at first from
the Helots who cultivated the soil as large a part of the pro
duce as they possibly could. It was easier to require than
to get much ; indeed, by requiring too much, they would
get nothing. Despair would baffle rapacity. It is also to
be conceded, that the proportion once fixed must remain
fixed. This, ancient writers inform us, was the case. Now,
as the Spartans were a body continually diminishing, their
power to extort must have declined with their numbers.
Time also must have made great changes in the value of the
rents, though payable in kind. Accordingly, we are told,
that most of the Spartan families fell into poverty, and many
of the Helots became very rich. Their rise to some share
of political and personal importance was the necessary con
sequence.

IT was only one hundred and thirty years after Lycurgus,
that the operation of these principles was made manifest,
and their progress accelerated, by the establishment of the
ephori. These five annual magistrates resembled the Ro
man tribunes of the people, were elected by the mass of the
nation, and in fact were often selected from the dregs of the
people. At first their power and their pretensions were
moderate ; but, as the aristocracy continued to decline, and
the democracy, whose favourites and champions they were,
made haste to raise itself, they gradually subverted the
original system of the government, and engrossed its powers.

456 THE INSTITUTIONS

They deposed kings, and exercised the functions of sove
reignty themselves.

HENCE it is, that all antiquity bewails the cfecay of Spartan
virtue. The citizens had not declined from virtue, for the
Spartan morals were ever bad ; but the aristocracy had fallen
from power. Polybius assures us, that the institutions of
Lycurgus were admirably adapted to Sparta, while it was
content to remain a small state, and refrained from ambitious
wars to conquer Greece and Asia. Their degeneracy is
dated from the time when Lysander took Athens, and when
Agesilaus made his expedition against the Persian king.
Sparta was then filled with rich spoils, and corruption enter
ed, they say, with riches. The labouring classes had always
loved property, but were deprived, as much as possible, by
Lycurgus of all chances to amass it. The governing class
had not, until these wars, enjoyed many opportunities to get
it, nor had it then become an object of personal influence and
consideration.

BUT too much influence seems to be allowed to these vic
tories. In a very early age, the Lacedaemonians, after an
obstinate and long protracted contest, had subdued Messene,
a state little less considerable than their own, and made
slaves of the people. The property was the booty of the
conquerors ; yet they maintained their laws for many hun
dred years after that event. The Romans were conquerors
from the days of Romulus, if we except the peaceful reign
of Numa ; yet the greatest boasts of Roman simplicity and
virtue, of love of country and contempt of wealth, are made
in the very crisis of their most dangerous wars with Pyrrhus
and the Samnites, which gave them the dominion of Italy.

HAD the Lacedaemonians abstained from wars of ambition,
they would have changed, or, as it is the fashion to term it,
degenerated. The wars of Lysander and Agesilaus furnish
ed the occasions, but were not the causes of the change.
When property and power, once a Spartan monopoly, had
passed into other hands, the change was inevitable.

OF LYCURGUS. 457

SPARTAN equality has been the everlasting boast of decla
mation. It was not Lycurgus's view to make his nobles bet
ter, but to raise them higher than other men ; and that they
might to the end of time be sustained at that point of eleva
tion, he contrived to sink all other classes to servitude or
insignificance. The nobles were a sort of perpetual garri
son for Sparta. Lycurgus did not intend to train all the
inhabitants to be nobles.

HAVING made this accurate distinction of orders in the
state, and removed, as far as human wisdom could do it, all
the causes that might revive their rivalships and struggles,
he may be pronounced the friend of the independence and
of the tranquillity of his country, but without excessive absur
dity, he cannot be allowed to be the founder of equal liberty.
The Lacedaemonians had all the liberty, and most of the vir
tues and vices of a camp, which is always quiet, and gene
rally has reason to be, as long as subordination is maintained.

Is it wonderful, then, that a state, thus admirably organ
ized for its own peculiar purposes, was able, for so many
centuries, to preserve itself unsubdued by its hostile neigh
bours ? or that the aristocracy, who engrossed all political
power, as well as the command of armies, should be able so
long to hinder the excluded orders of the state from obtain
ing a share in the government of it ?

58

£ 458 ]

AMERICAN LITERATURE.

A1 EW speculative subjects have exercised the passions
more or the judgment less, than the inquiry, what rank our
country is to maintain in the world for genius and literary
attainments. Whether in point of intellect we are equal to
Europeans, or only a race of degenerate Creoles ; whether
our artists and authors have already performed much and
promise every thing ; whether the muses, like the nightin
gales, are too delicate to cross the salt water, or sicken and
mope without song, if they do, are themes upon which we
Americans are privileged to be eloquent and loud. It might,
ind -ed, occur to our discretion, that, as the only admissible
proof of literary excellence is the measure of its effects, our
national claims ought to be abandoned as worthless the mo
ment they are found to need asserting.

NEVERTHELESS, by a proper spirit and constancy in prais
ing ourselves, it seems to be supposed, the doubtful title of our
vanity may be quieted, in the same manner ash was once be
lieved, the currency of the continental paper could, by a uni
versal agreement, be established at par with specie. Yet,
such was the unpatriotick perverseness of our citizens, they
preferred the gold and silver for no better reason than be
cause the paper bills were not so good. And now it may
happen, that, from spite or envy, from want of attention or
the want of our sort of information, foreigners will dispute
the claims of our pre-eminence in genius and literature, not
withstanding the great convenience and satisfaction we should
find in their acquiescence.

IN this unmanageable temper or indocile ignorance of
Europe, we may be under the harsh necessity of submitting
our pretensions to a scrutiny ; and, as the world will judge of
the matter with none of our partiality, it may be discreet to

. AMERICAN LITERATURE. 459

anticipate that judgment, and to explore the grounds upon
which, it is probable, the aforesaid world will frame it. And
after all we should suffer more pain than loss, if we should
in the erent be stripped of all that does not belong to us ;
and, especially, if by a better knowledge of ourselves we
should gain that modesty, which is the first evidence, and,
perhaps, the last of a real improvement. For no man is less
likely to increase his knowledge than the coxcomb, who
fancies he has already learned out. An excessive national
vanity, as it is the sign of mediocrity, if not of barbarism,
is one of the greatest impediments to knowledge.

IT will be Useless and impertinent to say, a greater pro
portion of our citizens have had instruction in schools, than
can be found in any European state. It may be true, that
neither France nor England can boast of so large a portion
of their population, who can read and write, and who are
versed in the profitable mystery of the rule of three. This
is not the footing upon which the inquiry is to proceed.
The question is not, what proportion are stone blind, or
how many can see, when the sun shines, but what geniuses
have arisen among us, like the sun and stars to shed life
and splendour on our hemisphere.

THIS state of the case is no sooner made, than all the fire
fly tribe of our authors perceive their little lamps go out of
themselves, like the flame of a candle when lowered into the
mephitick vapour of a well. Excepting the writers of two able
works on our politicks, we have no authors. To enter the lists
in single combat against Hector, the Greeks did not offer
the lots to the nameless rabble of their soldiery ; all eyes
were turned upon Agamemnon and Ajax, upon Diomed
and Ulysses. Shall we match Joel Barlow against Homer
or Hesiod ? Can Thomas Paine contend against Plato ? Or
could Findley's history of his own insurrection vie with Sal-
lust's narrative of Catiline's ? There is no scarcity of spel
ling-book-makers, and authors of twelve cent pamphlets ; and
we have a distinguished few, a sort of literary nobility, whose

460 AMERICAN LITERATURE.

works have grown to the dignity and size of an octavo volume.
We have many writers, who have read, and who have the
sense to understand what others have written. But a right
perception of the genius of others is not genius : it is a sort
of business talent, and will not be wanting where there is
much occasion for its exercise. Nobody will pretend, that
the Americans are a stupid race ; nobody will deny, that we
justly boast of many able men, and exceedingly useful publica
tions. But has our country produced one great original
work of genius ? If we tread the sides of Parnassus, we do
not climb its heights : we even creep in our path, by the light
that European genius has thrown upon it. Is there one
luminary in our firmament that shines with unborrowed ray s ?
Do we reflect, how many constellations blend their beams in
the history of Greece, which will appear bright to the end of
time, like the path of the zodiack, bespangled with stars.

IF, then, we judge of the genius of our nation by the suc
cess with which American authors have displayed it, our
country has certainly hitherto no pretensions to literary
fame. The world will naturally enough pronounce its opin
ion, that what we have not performed we are incapable of
performing.

IT is not intended to proceed in stripping our country's
honours off, till every lover of it shall turn with disgust from
the contemplation of its nakedness. Our honours have not
faded — they have not been worn. Genius, no doubt, exists
in our country, but it exists, like the unbodied soul on the
stream of Lethe, unconscious of its powers, till the causes
to excite and the occasions to display it shall happen to
concur.

WHAT were those causes, that have for ever consecrated
the name of Greece ? We are sometimes answered, she owes
her fame to the republican liberty of her states. But Homer,
and Hesiod, to say nothing of Linus, Orpheus, Musaeus, and
many others, wrote while kings governed those states. Ana-
creon and Simonides flourished in the court of Pisistratus, who

AMERICAN LITERATURE. 461

bad overthrown the democracy of Athens. Nor, we may add
in corroboration, did Roman genius flourish, till the repub-
lick fell. France and England are monarchies, and they
have excelled all modern nations by their works of genius.
Hence we have a right to conclude, the form of government
has not a decisive, and certainly not an exclusive influence
on the literary eminence of a people.

IF climate produces genius, how happens it, that the great
men who reflected such honour on their country appeared
only in the period of a few hundred years before the death
of Alexander ? The melons and figs of Greece are still as
fine as ever ; but where are the Pindars ?

IN affairs that concern morals, we consider the approbation
of a man's own conscience as more precious than all human
rewards. But, in the province of the imagination, the applause
of others is of all excitements the strongest. This excitement
is the cause ; excellence, the effect. When every thing con
curs, and in Greece every thing did concur, to augment its
power, a nation wakes at once from the sleep of ages. It would
seem as if some Minerva, some present divinity, inhabited
her own temple in Athens, and by flashing light and work
ing miracles had conferred on a single people, and almost on
a single age of that people, powers that are denied to other
men and other times. The admiration of posterity is excited
and overstrained by an effulgence of glory, as much beyond
our comprehension as our emulation. The Greeks seem to
us a race of giants, Titans, the rivals, yet the favourites of
their gods. We think their apprehension was quicker, their
native taste more refined, their prose poetry, their poetry
musick, their musick enchantment. We imagine they had
more expression in their faces, more grace in their move
ments, more sweetness in the tones of conversation than the
moderns. Their fabulous deities are supposed to have left
their heaven to breathe the fragrance of their groves, and
to enjoy the beauty of their landscapes. The monuments of
heroes must have excited to heroism ; and the fountains,

462 AMERICAN LITERATURE.

which the muses had chosen for their purity, imparted in
spiration.

IT is, indeed, almost impossible to contemplate the bright
ages of Greece, without indulging the propensity to enthu
siasm.

WE are ready to suspect the delusion of our feelings, and
to ascribe its fame to accident, or to causes which have spent
their force. Genius, we imagine, is for ever condemned to
inaction by having exhausted its power, as well as the subjects
upon which it has displayed itself. Another Homer or Vir
gil could only copy the Iliad and Jineid ; and can the se
cond poets, from cinders and ashes, light such a fire as still
glows in the writings of the first. Genius, it will be said,
like a conflagration on the mountains, consumes its fuel in its
flame. Not so — It is a spark of elemental fire that is un
quenchable, the contemporary of this creation, and destined
with the human soul to survive it. As well might the stars
of heaven be said to expend their substance by their lustre.
It is to the intellectual world what the electrick fluid is to
nature, diffused every where, yet almost every where hid
den, capable by its own mysterious laws of action and by the
very breath of applause, that like the unseen wind excites it,
of producing effects that appear to transcend all power, ex
cept that of some supernatural agent riding in the whirlwind.
In an hour of calm we suddenly hear its voice, and are moved
with the general agitation. It smites, astonishes, and con
founds, and seems to kindle half the firmament.

IT may be true, that some departments in literature are
so filled by the ancients, that there is no room for modern
excellence to occupy. Homer wrote soon after the heroick
ages, and the fertility of. the soil seemed in some measure to
arise from its freshness : it had never borne a crop. Another
Iliad would not be undertaken by a true genius, nor equally
interest this age, if he executed it. But it will not be correct
to say, the field is reduced to barrenness from having been
over-cropped. Men have still imagination and passions, and

AMERICAN LITERATURE. 463

they can be excited. The same causes that made Greece
famous, would, if they existed here, quicken the clods of our
vallies, and make our Bocotia sprout and blossom like their
Attica.

IN analyzing genius and considering how it acts, it will be
proper to inquire, how it is acted upon. It feels the power
it exerts, and its emotions are contagious, because they are
fervid and sincere. A single man may sit alone and medi
tate, till he fancies he is under no influence but that of reason.
Even in this opinion, however,, he will allow too little for pre
judice and imagination ; and still more must be allowed when
he goes abroad and acts in the world. But masses and socie
ties of men are governed by their passions.

THE passion that acts the strongest, when it acts at all, is
fear ; for, in its excess, it silences all reasoning and all other
passions. But that which acts with the greatest- force, be
cause it acts with the greatest constancy, is the desire of
consideration. There are very few men who are greatly
deceived with respect to their own measure of sense and
abilities, or who are much dissatisfied on that account ; but
we scarcely see any who are quite at case about the estimate
that other people make of them. Hence it is, that the great
business of mankind is to fortify or create claims to general
regard. Wealth procures respect, and more wealth would
procure more respect. The man who, like Midas, turns all
he touches into gold, who is oppressed and almost buried in
its superfluity, who lives to get, instead of getting to live,
and at length belongs to his own estate and is its greatest
incumbrance, still toils and contrives to accumulate wealth,
not because he is deceived in regard to his wants, but because
he knows and feels, that one of his wants, which is insatiable,
is that respect which follows its possession. After engross
ing all that the seas and mountains conceal, he would be still
unsatisfied, and with some good reason, for of the treasures
of esteem who can ever have enough? Who would mar or
renounce one half his reputation in the world ?

464 AMERICAN LITERATURE.

AT different tinges, the opinions of men in the same coun
try will vary with regard to the objects of prime considera
tion, and in different countries there will ever be a great
difference ; but that which is the first object of regard will
be the chief object of pursuit. Men will be most excited to
excel in that department which offers to excellence the
highest reward in the respect and admiration of mankind. It
was this strongest of all excitements that stimulated the lite
rary ages of Greece.

IN the heroick times, it is evident, violence and injustice
prevailed. The state of society was far from tranquil or
safe. Indeed, the traditional fame of the heroes and demi
gods is founded on the gratitude that was due for their
protection against tyrants and robbers. Thucy elides tells
us, that companies of travellers were often asked, whether
they were thieves. Greece was divided into a great number
of states, all turbulent, all martial, always filled with emula
tion, and often with tumult and blood. The laws of war
were far more rigorous than they are at present. Each state,
and each citizen in the state, contended for all that is dear to
man. If victors, they despoiled their enemies of every thing ;
the property was booty, and the people were made slaves,
Such was the condition of the Helots and Messenians under
the yoke of Sparta. There was every thing, then, both of
terrour and ignominy to rouse the contending states to make
every effort to avoid subjugation.

THE fate of Piatsea, a city that was besieged and taken by
the Spartans, and whose citizens were massacred in cold
blood, affords a terrible illustration of this remark. The
celebrated siege of Troy is an instance more generally
known, and no less to the purpose. With what ardent love
and enthusiasm the Trojans viewed their Hector, and the
Greeks their Ajax and Achilles, is scarcely to be conceived.
It cannot be doubted, that to excel in arms was the first of
all claims to the popular admiration.

AMERICAN LITERATURE. 465

NOR can it escape observation, tkat in times of extreme clan
ger the internal union of a state would be most perfect. In
these days we can have no idea of the ardour of ancient
patriotism. A society of no great extent was knit together
like one family by the ties of love, emulation, and enthusiasm.
Fear, the strongest of all passions, operated in the strongest of
all ways. Hence we find, that the first traditions of all nations
concern the champions who defended them in war.

THIS universal state of turbulence and danger, while it
would check the progress of the accurate sciences, would
greatly extend the dominion of the imagination. It would be
deemed of more importance, to rouse or command the feel
ings of men, than to augment or correct their knowledge.

IN this period it might be supposed, that eloquence display
ed its power ; but this was not the case. Views of refined
policy and calculations of remote consequences were not adapt
ed to the taste or capacity of rude warriours, who did not rea
son at all, or only reasoned from their passions. The business
was not to convince, but to animate ; and this was accomplish
ed by poetry. It was enough to inspire the poet's enthusiasm,
to know beforehand, that his nation would partake it.

ACCORDINGLY, the bard was considered as the interpreted1
and favourite of the gods. His strains were received with
equal rapture and reverence as the effusions of an immediate
inspiration. They were made the vehicles of their traditions to
diffuse and perpetuate the knowledge of memorable events and
illustrious men.

WE grossly mistake the matter, if we suppose, that poetry
was received of old with as much apathy as it is at the present
day. Books are now easy of access ; and literary curiosity suf
fers oftener from repletion than from hunger. National events
slip from the memory to our records : they miss the heart,
though they are sure to reach posterity.

IT was not thus the Grecian chiefs listened to Phemius or
Demodocus, the bards mentioned by Homer. It was not thus
that Homer's immortal verse was received by his country
men. The thrones, of Priam and Agamemnon were both long
59

466 AMERICAN LITERATURE.

ago subverted ; their kingdoms and those of their conquerors
have long since disappeared, and left no wreck nor memorial
behind ; but the glory of Homer has outlived his country and
its language, and will remain unshaken like Teneriffe or Atlas,
the ancestor of history and the companion of time to the end
of his course. O ! had he in his lifetime enjoyed, though in
imagination, but a glimpse of his own glory, would it not have
swelled his bosom with fresh enthusiasm, and quickened all
his powers ? What will not ambition do for a crown ? and
what crown can vie with Homer's.

THOUGH the art of alphabetick writing was known in the
East in the time of the Trojan war, it is no where mentioned
by Homer, who is so exact and full in describing all the arts
he knew. If his poems were in writing, the copies were few ;
and the knowledge of them was diffused, not by reading, but
by the rhapsodists, who made it a profession to recite his
verses.

POETRY, of consequence, enjoyed in that age, in respect to
the vivacity of its impressions, and the significance of the
applauses it received, as great advantages as have ever since
belonged to the theatre. Instead of a cold perusal in a closet,
or a still colder confinement, unread, in a bookseller's shop, the
poet saw with delight his work become the instructer of the
wise, the companion of the brave and the great. Alexander
locked up the Iliad in the precious cabinet of Darius, as a
treasure of more value than the spoils of the king of Persia.

BUT though Homer contributed so much and so early to fix
the language, to refine the taste, and_ inflame the imagination
of the Greeks, his work, by its very excellence, seems to have
quenched the emulation of succeeding poets to attempt the
epick. It was not till long after his age, and by very slow
degrees, that JEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides carried the
tragick art to its perfection.

FOR many hundred years there seems to have been no other
literary taste, and, indeed, no other literature than poetry.
When there was so much to excite and reward genius, as no
rival to Homer appeared, it is a clear proof, that nature did not

AMERICAN LITERATURE, 4G7

produce one. We look back on the history of Greece, and
the names of illustrious geniuses thicken on the page, like the
stars that seem to sparkle in clusters in the sky. But if with
Homer's own spirit we could walk the milky-way, we should
find, that regions of unmeasured space divide the bright lumi
naries that seem to be so near. It is no reproach to the genius
of America, if it does not produce ordinarily such men us were
deemed the prodigies of the ancient world. Nature has pro
vided for the propagation of men — giants are rare ; and it is
forbidden by her laws, that there should be races of them.

IF the genius of men could have stretched to the giant's
size, there was every thing in Greece to nourish its growth
and invigorate its force. After the time of Homer, the Olym-
pick and other games were established. All Greece, assembled
by its deputies, beheld the contests of wit and valour, and saw
statues and crowns adjudged to the victors, who contended for
the glory of their native cities as well as for their own. To us
it may seem, that a handful of laurel leaves was a despicable
prize. But what were the agonies, what the raptures of the
contending parties, we may read, but we cannot conceive.
That reward, which writers are now little excited to merit,
because it is doubtful and distant, " the estate which wits
inherit after death," was in Greece a present possession. That
publick so terrible by its censure, so much more terrible by
its neglect, was then assembled in person, and the happy genius
who was crowned victor was ready to expire with the trans
ports of his joy.

THERE is reason to believe, that poetry was more cultivated
in those early ages than it evei1 has been since. The great
celebrity of the only two epick poems of antiquity, was owing
to the peculiar circumstances of the ages in which Homer and
Virgil lived ; and without the concurrence of those circum
stances their reputation would have been confined to the
closets of scholars, without reaching the hearts and kindling
the fervid enthusiasm of the multitude. Homer wrote of war
to heroes and their followers, to men, who felt the military
passion stronger than the love of life ; Virgil? with art at least

468 AMERICAN LITERATURE,

equal to his genius, addressed his poem to Romans, who loved
their countiy with sentiment, with passion, with fanaticism. It
is scarcely possible, that a modern epick poet should find a
subject that would take such hold of the heart, for no such
subject worthy of poetry exists. Commerce has supplanted
war, as the passion of the multitude ; and the arts have divided
and contracted the objects of pursuit. Societies are no longer
under the power of single passions, that once flashed enthusi
asm through them all at once like electricity. Now the pro
pensities of mankind balance and neutralize each other, and, of
course, narrow the range in which poetry used to move. Its
coruscations are confined, like the northern light, to the polar
circle of trade and politicks, or, like a transitory meteor, blaze
in a pamphlet or magazine.

THE time seems to be near, and, perhaps, is already arrived,
when poetry, at least poetry of transcendent merit, will be con
sidered among the lost arts. It is a long time since England
lias produced a first rate poet. If America has not to boast at
all what our parent country boasts no longer, it will not be
thought a proof of the deficiency of our genius.

IT is a proof that the ancient literature was wholly occupied
by poetry, that we are without the works, and, indeed, without
the names of any other very ancient authors except poets.
Herodotus is called the father of history ; and he lived and'
wrote between four and five hundred years after Homer.
Thucydides, it is said, on hearing the applauses bestowed at
the publick games on the recital of the work of Herodotus,
though he was then a boy, shed tears of emulation. He after
wards excelled his rival in that species of writing.

EXCELLENT, however, as these Grecian histories will ever
be esteemed, it is somewhat remarkable, that political science
never received much acquisition in the Grecian democracies.
If Sparta should be vouched as an exception to this remark,
it may be replied, Sparta was not a democracy. Lest that,
however, should pass for an evasion of the point, it may be
further answered, the constitution of Lycurgus seems to have
teen adapted to Sparta rather as a camp than a society of citi-

AMERICAN LITERATURE. 469

zens. His whole system is rather a body of discipline than of
laws, whose sole object it was, not to refine manners or extend
knowledge, but to provide for the security of the camfi. The
citizens, with whom any portion of political power was en
trusted, were a military cast or class ; and the rigour of Ly-
curgus's rules and articles was calculated and intended to make
them superiour to all other soldiers. The same strictness, that
for so long a time preserved the Spartan government, secures
the subordination and tranquillity of modern armies. Sparta was,
of course, no proper field for the cultivation of the science of
politicks. Nor can we believe, that the turbulent democracies
of the neighbouring states favoured the growth of that kind of
knowledge, since we are certain it never did thrive in Greece.
How could it be, that the assemblies of the people, convened
to hear flattery or to lavish the publick treasures for plays and
shews to amuse the populace, should be any more qualified,
than inclined to listen to political disquisitions, and especially
to the wisdom and necessity of devising and putting in opera
tion systematical checks on their own power, which was threat
ened with ruin by its licentiousness and excess, and which
soon actually overthrew it ? It may appear bold, but truth and
history seem to warrant the assertion, that political science
will never become accurate in popular stntes ; for in them the
most salutary truths must be too offensive for currency or in
fluence.

IT may be properly added, and in perfect consistency with
the theory before assumed, that fear is the strongest of all pas
sions, that in democracies writers will be more afraid of the
people than afraid for them. The principles indispensable to
liberty are not therefore to be discovered, or, if discovered, not
to be propagated and established in such a state of things. But
where the chief magistrate holds the sword, and is the object of
reverence, if not of popular fear, the direction of prejudice and
feeling will be changed. Supposing the citizens to have pri
vileges, and to be possessed of influence, or, in other wrords, of
some power in the state, they will naturally wish so to use the
power they have, as to be secure against the abuse of that

470 AMERICAN LITERATURE.

which their chief possesses ; and this universal propensity of
the publick wishes will excite and reward the genius that dis
covers the way in which this may be done. If we know any
thing of the true theory of liberty, we owe it to the wisdom,
or, perhaps more correctly, to the experience of those nations
whose publick sentiment was employed to check rather than
to guide the government.

v IT is, then, little to be expected, that American writers will
add much to the common stock of political information.

IT might have been sooner remarked, that the dramatick art
has not afforded any opportunities for native writers. It is but
lately that we have had theatres in our cities ; and till our cities
become large, like London and Paris, the progress of taste will
be slow, and the rewards of excellence unworthy of the com
petitions of genius.

NOR will it be charged as a mark of our stupidity, that we
have produced nothing in history. Our own is not yet worthy
of a Livy ; and to write that of any foreign nation where could
an American author collect his materials and authorities ?
Few persons reflect, that all our universities would not suffice
to supply them for such a work as Gibbon's.

THE reasons, why we yet boast nothing in the abstruse
sciences, are of a different and more various nature. Much,
perhaps all, that has been discovered in these is known to
some of our literati. It does not appear, that Europe is now
making any advances. But to make a wider diffusion of
these sciences, and to enlarge their circle, would require the
learned leisure, which a numerous class enjoy in Europe, but
which cannot be enjoyed in America. If wealth is accumu
lated by commerce, it is again dissipated among heirs. Its
transitory nature, no doubt, favours the progress of luxury more
than the advancement of letters. It has among us no uses to
found families, to sustain rank, to purchase power, or to pen
sion genius. The objects on which it must be employed are
all temporary, and have more concern with mere appetite or
ostentation than with taste or talents. Our citizens have not
been accustomed to look on rank or titles, on birth or office

AMERICAN LITERATURE. 471

as capable of the least rivalship with wealth, mere wealth, in
pretensions to respect. Of course the single passion that en
grosses us, the only avenue to consideration and importance
in our society, is the accumulation of property : our inclina
tions cling to gold, and are bedded in it as deeply as that pre
cious ore in the mine. Covered as our genius is in this min
eral crust, is it strange that it does not sparkle ? Pressed down
to earth, and with the weight of mountains on our heads, is it
surprising, that no sons of ether yet have spread their broad
wings to the sky, like Jove's own eagle, to gaze undazzled at
the sun, or to perch on the top of Olympus and partake the
banquet of the gods.

AT present the nature of our government inclines all men
to seek popularity as the object next in point of value to
wealth ; but the acquisition of learning and the display of ge
nius are not the ways to obtain it. Intellectual superiority is
so far from conciliating confidence, that it is the very spirit of
a democracy, as in France, to proscribe the aristocracy of
talents. To be the favourite of an ignorant multitude, a man
must descend to their level ; he must desire what they desire,
and detest all that they do not approve ; he must yield to their
prejudices, and substitute them for principles. Instead of en
lightening their errours, he must adopt them ; he must furnish
the sophistry that will propagate and defend them.

SURELY we are not to look for genius among demagogues :
the man who can descend so low, has seldom very far to de
scend. As experience evinces, that popularity, in other words,
consideration and power, is to be procured by the meanest of
mankind, the meanest in spirit and understanding, and in the
worst of ways, it is obvious, that at present the excitement to
genius is next to nothing. If we had a Pindar, he would be
ashamed to celebrate our chief, and would be disgraced, if he
did. But if he did not, his genius would not obtain his elec
tion for a selectman in a democratick town. It is party that
bestows emolument, power, and consideration ; and it is not
excellence in the sciences that obtains the suffrages of party.

472 AMERICAN LITERATURE.

BUT the condition of the United States is changing. Luxu
ry is sure to introduce want ; and the great inequalities be
tween the very rich and the very poor will be more conspicu
ous, and comprehend a more formidable host of the latter.
The rabble of great cities is the standing army of ambition.
Money will become its instrument, and vice its agent. Every
step, and we have taken many, towards a more complete, un
mixed democracy is an advance towards destruction : it is
treading where the ground is treacherous and excavated for
an explosion. Liberty has never yet lasted long in a demo
cracy ; nor has it ever ended in any thing better than despo
tism. With the change of our government, our manners and
sentiments will change. As soon as our emperour has de
stroyed his rivals and established order in his army, he will
desire to see splendour in his court, and to occupy his subjects
with the cultivation of the sciences.

IF this catastrophe of our publick liberty should be miracu
lously delayed or prevented, still we shall change. With the
augmentation of wealth, there will be an increase of the num
bers who may choose a literary leisure. Literary curiosity will
become' one of the new appetites of the nation ; and as luxury
advances, no appetite will be denied. After some ages we
shall have many poor and a few rich, many grossly ignorant, a
considerable number learned, and a few eminently learned.
Nature, never prodigal of her gifts, will produce some men of
genius, who will be admired and imitated.

C 473 ]

REVIEW OF A PAMPHLET,

ENTITLED

PRESENT STATE OF THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION HISTORICALLY
ILLUSTRATED.— LONDON, 1807. pp. 182.

JL ROM the size of this pamphlet, and from its title page, it
was natural to expect profound investigation and accurate and
important results. The design of the work is announced with
uncommon parade in an introduction of sixteen pages ; but we
do not hesitate to say, these are sixteen pages too much ; for
the object of the writer is sufficiently unfolded in what fol
lows.

THE work is divided into two parts. In the first part, he
proposes to discuss the theory of the British constitution, and
to examine how the theory differs from the practice. This
part extends from the seventeenth to the ninety ninth page, in
clusive. It is very verbose, and contains nothing new. After
a long display of old historical facts, which he seldom applies,
and which are not always applicable to his subject, he abruptly
and unexpectedly concludes, that the security of the people
under the present British constitution is owing to the freedom
of the press. We confess, we have been ready to prove the
remarkable strength and stability of that constitution, and, of
course, the security of the people, by its having stood so long
in spite of the abuses of the press. For where the press is
free, it will be abused.

WE ARE, HEART AND SOUL, FRIENDS TO THE FREEDOM OF

THE PRESS. It is, however, the prostituted companion of lib
erty, and somehow or other, we know not how, its efficient
auxiliary. It follows the substance like its shade ; but while a
man walks erect, he may observe, that his shadow is almost
always in the dirt. It corrupts, it deceives, it inflames. It
60

474 REVIEW OF

strips virtue of her honours, and lends to faction its wildfire
and its poisoned arms, and in the end is its own enemy and
the usurper's ally. It would be easy to enlarge on its evils.
They are in England, they are here, they are every where.
It is a precious pest and a necessary mischief, and THERE

WOULD BE NO LIBERTY WITHOUT IT. We expected, that the

author would have attempted profoundly to trace its useful
operation ; but he has not done it ; and this rare task remains
for some more acute inquirer into the obscure causes of its
salutary influence.

Ix the second part he undertakes to prove, that this is the
great safeguard of that constitution. For this purpose, he re
sorts again to history. But in the instances he adduces to
shew the influence of a free press, he only demonstrates
the power of publick opinion. The nation would have an
opinion, if it had not a press ; and that opinion would have
weight and authority. Before the art of printing was known,
bad ministers were crushed by publick odium. The favour
ites of Edward the second of England were as effectually over
powered by it, as if the press had been used. The freedom
of the press cannot hinder its being venal. Had it then exist
ed, those odious favourites would have used it to palliate their
crimes. They would have bought the press ; and, no doubt,
they would have been patriots in type, till they were stripped
of the means of corruption ; and then again they would have
be£n odious monsters. In our time this boasted luminary
vents more smoke than light ; so that the circumstances of
transactions and the characters of men are to be clearly known
only by waiting for the evidence of history in a future age,
when it will be of very little comparative importance, whether
the subject be understood or mistaken.

THOUGH nobody will deny the influence of publick opinion
upon government, still it is a distinct question, what is the
boasted salutary influence of the press ? It might help the
cause of truth and liberty ; it might produce as well as gratify
a thirst for inquiry. But who pretend to be the instructers of

A PAMPHLET. 475

the people ? men who are themselves instructed, or needy,
ignorant profligates ? The use of the press must be supposed
to lie in helping a nation to discern and to judge. Experience
seems to shew, that the press makes every thing more apparent
than the truth ; and by eternally pretending to judge, the pub-
lick opinion is without authority or influence ; it is counter
feited by fools, and perverted by knaves. But a plain people,
without a press, would know oppression, when they felt it ; and
there is no government which is not supported by military
force; that would disregard the complaints of an indignant na
tion. By the help of the press we see invisible things ; we
foresee evils in their embryo, and accumulate on the present
moment all that is bitter in the past or terrible in the future.
A whole people are made sick with the diseases of the ima
gination. They see a monarch in Washington, and conspirators
in their patriots. They turn their best men out of office on the
strength of their suspicions ; and trust their worst men in spite
of their knowledge of them. It is the press that has spoiled
the temper of our liberty, and may shorten its life.

SfJLL^ ive refieat, ive would by no means ivish to see the liber
ty of the jiress abridged. But how it is that we are dieted upon
poisons and yet live, we pretend not to say, nor has this author
instructed us.

FROM these deductions we venture to pronounce, that the
freedom of the press is not the cause of the security of the
British people or of the duration of their constitution. It is not
our business to make a theory, but only to expose that of the
author, which indeed is scarcely worth confuting. But we
should think, that the freedom of that constitution arises rather
from the distinct existence and political power of three orders,
than from the press. The press could tell of oppression, if it
had happened ; but the lords and commons could remove and
punish it.

BUT though we cannot possibly discover, how the freedom
of the press can secure the constitution of an hereditary gov
ernment, we can easily see, how in a popular state the abuse of

476 REVIEW OF A PAMPHLET.

the press may fortify a faction in power. It is not merit, it is
not wisdom that in such a state can confer power ; it is faction
which has an interest in accumulating wealth and privilege
upon its members, and persecution on its rivals. We know
a country, where the press is successfully used for the con
cealment of the truth. Newspapers written all on one side are
read all on one side ; and the truth and argument of the ad
verse party are as little known, and have less chance of being
understood by the other than the language of Hindostan or the
religion of Thibet.

[ 477 3

LETTERS.

TO MR. ******, AT SPRINGFIELD.

PHILADELPHIA, May 6th, 1794.
DEAR FRIEXD,

Jl SHOULD suffer a fever of the hypo, as severe as the
fever and ague, if I could persuade myself congress would sit
here till mid-summer. But I think we shall adjourn in three
weeks. The heat, weariness, a desire to disperse our mischief-
makers, conspire to wind up the session.

IT has been unusually painful and hazardous to peace and
good order. My hopes are, however, that we shall escape the
threatened danger, which will coincide with the interests and
wishes of the people and the sense of a majority of congress.
Such are the wishes of a majority of congress, although a
number have been duped into a support of measures tending
to a war. The desperadoes desire war ; and I think they would
get the upper hand to manage a war. Whatever kindles popu
lar passions into fury, gives strength to that faction. What
fine topicks for calumny would not a war furnish ? A moderate
or honest man could be stigmatized, mobbed, declared a sus
pected person, guillotined, and his property might be taken
for publick purposes. France might see her bloody exploits
rivalled by her pupil, emulous of her glory.

WAR without anarchy is bad enough ; but would it not also
bring the extreme of confusion.

FEDERAL men come from the Northward to congress with
an opinion, that government is as strong as thunder ; and that
by coaxing and going half way with certain Southern members
they might be won. Both these opinions yield very soon to
the evidence of their senses. They see government a puny

478 LETTERS.

thing, held up by great exertions and greater good luck, and
assailed by a faction who feel an inextinguishable animosity
against any debt-compelling government, and whose importance
sinks as that of equal laws rises.

YESTERDAY the senators from Virginia moved for lea1 e to
bring in a bill, to suspend that part of the treaty with Great
Britain which relates to debts. Thus, murder at last is out.
Norfolk and Baltimore perform heroick exploits in the tar and
feathers line. Here they only dismantled, by force, a schooner,
which five British officers, prisoners on parole, had got leave
to go to England in, having chartered her. These are violences
worthy of Mohawks. Compared with New-England, the mul
titude in these towns are but half civilized.

WILL our Yankees like a war the better for being mobbed
into it, and because also the South will not pay the British
debts ? Our people have paid ; and will they pay in the form of
war for their Southern brethren ? I do not know, that passion
is ever to be reasoned down ; but other passions could be rea
soned up to resist the prevailing one. I wish our newspapers
were better filled with paragraphs and essays to unmask our
Catiline s.

A LAND tax is likely to be rejected, and the dislike to it will
carry along indirect taxes. While war is an event to be pro
vided against, the increase of revenue by excise is an import
ant object.

* * is as he wras made. His foes will say, by way of reproach,
and his friends by way of vindication, he was born so.

I AM sorry for the failure of the dam, and am in hopes you
will profit by the event to make it the stronger. Success
to you.

SPEAK of me to friends, as may suit the sentiments with
which I am theirs and your's,

FISHER AMES.

, LETTERS. * 479

TO THE SAME.

PHILADELPHIA, December 12th, 1794.
MY DEAR FRIEND,

I THINK publick life has not chilled my social attach
ments, nor do I see much in it calculated to draw me off from
them.

THE last session, the noise of debate was more deafening
than a mill ; and this, excepting in one instance, maintains a
pouting silence, an armed neutrality, that does not afford the
animation of a conflict, nor the security of peace. We sleep
upon our arms. To sink the publick debt by paying it seems
to be the chief business to expedite. That will require some
address to get effected, as our anti-funders are used to a more
literal sinking of debts. To put the debt in train of being
paid off, would in a measure disarm faction of a weapon.

EVENTS have shown the falsehood of almost every antifederal
doctrine ; and the time favours the impression of truth. It
is made, and the government stands on better ground than it
ever did. But I wish exceedingly, that our sober citizens should
weigh matters well. Faction is only baffled, not repenting, not
changed. New grounds will be found or invented for stirring
up sedition ; and unless the country is now deeply sensible of
the late danger and of the true characters of our publick men,
new troubles will arise. Good fortune may turn her back up
on us the next time, and if she had in August last, this union
would have been rent. Virginia acted better than could have
been expected ; and the militia return to all the states full of
federalism, and will help to diffuse their feelings among their
connections. The spirit of insurrection had tainted a vast ex
tent of country, besides Pennsylvania ; and had all the disaf
fected, combined and acted together, the issue would have
been long protracted, and doubtful at last.

WILL the people, seing this pit open, approach it again by
sending those to congress who led them blindfold to its brink
Some exertion, indeed all that can be made, appears to me

480 LETTERS.

worth making, nay more, indispensably necessary, wherever
an and is held up as a candidate. For, I venture to speak as a
prophet, if they will send insurgents, they must pay for rebel
lions. This government is utterly impracticable for any length
of time, with such a resisting party to derange its movements.
The people must interpose in the appointed way by excluding
mobocrats from legislation. I have faith, that very plain deal
ing with them would work a change, even in Virginia. Ought
not these considerations, which concern political life and death,
to weigh down all others in New-England ? Will not the river
men, who are so noted for good principles and habits, give
them support in the election which, I hear, is yet undecided
between general ******* and *****.

I KNOW, that men breathing the air of New-England cannot
credit the state of things in the back country and at the South.
They must not judge of others by themselves. They must
remember, that for preserving a free government a supine
security is next to treachery. If all New-England would move
in phalanx, at least we could hold our posts, and a short time
will work changes at the South. Our good citizens must con
sent to be more in earnest in their politicks, or submit to be
less secure in their rights and property.

YOUR account of thanksgiving has almost made me home
sick — not a pumpkin pye have I seen. A Yankee is supposed
to derive his principles from his keeping. Yet when that is
changed, he must not flinch,

Your't,

FISHER AMES.

TO THE SAME.

PHILADELPHIA, March 9, 1796.
MY DEAR FRIEND,

I SIT now in the house, and, that I may not lose my tem
per and my spirits, I shut my ears against the sophisms and
rant against the treaty, and divert my attention by writing to
you.

LETTERS. 481

NEVER was a time when I so much desired the full use of
my faculties, and it is the very moment when I am prohibited
even attention. To be silent, neutral, useless, is a situation
not to be envied. I almost wish ***** was here, and I at
home, sorting squash and pumpkin seeds for planting.

IT is a new post for me to be in. I am not a sentry, not in
the ranks, not in the staff. I am thrown into the waggon, as
part of the baggage. I am like an old gun, that is spiked or
the trunnions knocked off, and yet am carted off, not for the
worth of the old iron, but to balk the enemy of a trophy. My
political life is ended, and I am the survivor of myself, or
rather a troubled ghost of a politician, that am condemned to
haunt the field of battle where I fell. Whether the govern
ment will long outlive me, is doubtful. I know it is sick, and,
many of the physicians say, of a mortal disease. A crisis now
exists, the most serious I ever witnessed, and the more dan
gerous, because it is not dreaded. Yet, I confess, if we should
navigate the federal ship through this strait, and get out again
into the open sea, we shall have a right to consider the chance
of our government as mended. We shall have a lease for
years — say four or five ; not a freehold — certainly not a fee
simple.

How will the Yankees feel and act1 when the day of trial
comes? It is not, I fear, many weeks off. Will they let the
casuists quibble away the very words and adulterate the genuine
spirit of the constitution ? When a measure passes by the pro
per authorities, shall it be stopped by force ? Sophistry may
change the form of the question, may hide some of the conse
quences, and may dupe some into an opinion of its moderation
when triumphant, yet the fact will speak for itself. The gov
ernment cannot go to the halves. It would be another, a worse
government, if the mob, or the leaders of the mob in congress,
can stop the lawful acts of the president, and unmake a treaty.
It would be cither no government, or instantly a government
by usurpation and wrong.
61

482 LETTERS.

MARCH 12th.

THE debate is yet unfinished, and will continue some days
longer. 1 beg you let **** have the paper, after you have
done with it.

I THINK we shall beat our opponents in the end, but the
conflict will light up a fierce war.

Your friend,

FJSHER AMES.

TO MR. ******, MEMBER OF CONGRESS, AT WASHINGTON.

DEDHAM, October 26th, 1803.
MY DEAR FRIEND,

I HAD resolved to write to you, before I received any
letter from you. For a week this scheme of merit has been
formed and postponed, till by your esteemed favour, with the
printed copy of the message, it has this day failed entirely.

I AM glad to hear of your safe, though weary, arrival at the
heaven of other men's ambition, your purgatory, where, indeed,
you will see good spirits,, with other spirits conjured by democ
racy from the vasty deep. Remember what I have often told
you, that the scene you are entering upon will form the best
characters and display them to the greatest advantage. The
furnace of political adversity will separate the dross, but purify
the gold. You will have the best society, under circumstances
to endear it to you and you to them. To serve the people
successfully, will be out of your power ; the attempt to do it
will be unpopular. To natter, inflame, and betray them, will
be the applauded work of demagogues, who will dig graves for
themselves and erect thrones for their victors, as in France.

THE principles of democracy are every where what they
have been in France ; the materials for them to work upon are
not in all places equally favourable. The fire of revolution
burnt in Paris like our New- England rum, quick to kindle,
not to be quenched, and leaving only a bitter, nauseous, spirit
less mass. Our country would burn like its own swamps, only

LETTERS. 483

after a long drought, with much smoke, and little flame ; but,
when once kindled, it would burrow deep into the soil, search
out and consume the roots, and leave, after one crop, a caput
mortuum, black and barren, for ages. If it should rain bless
ings, and keep our soil wet and soaking, it might not take fire
in our day.

OUR country is too big for union, too sordid for patriotism,
too democratick for liberty. What is to become of it, he who
made it best knows. Its vice will govern it, by practising upon
its folly. This is ordained for democracies ; and if morals as
pure- as Mr. Fauchet ascribes to the French republick, did not
inspire the present administration, it would have been our lot
at this day.

BUT on reading the message I am edified, as much as if I
had heard a methodist sermon in a barn. The men who have
the best principles, and those who act from the worst, will talk
alike, except only that the latter will exceed the former in
fervour. But the language of deceit, though stale and expos
ed to detection, will deceive as long as the multitude love flat
tery better than restraints, as long as truth has only charms for
fhe blind, and eloquence for the deaf. Suppose a missionary
should go to the Indians and recommend self-denial and the
ten commandments, and another should exhort them to drink
rum, which would first con-vert the heathen ? Yet we are told,
the vox jwfiuli is the vox del; and our demagogues claim a
right divine to reign over us, deduced no doubt from the pure
source I have indicated.

MY health is somewhat better. I rode in a chaise to Boston
yesterday with Mrs. A. It was a fine day, but in spite of all
my precautions, I was caught by several friends, who tired me
down in the street. My progress is slow, but I really think I
make some.

You shall hear from me as often as I can find a spirit of
industry to write, when I am not riding, which is twice a day.
But if I should prove negligent, still believe me, as I really am,
Your truly affectionate friend, &c.

FISHER AMES,

484 LETTERS.

TO THE SAME.

DEDHAM, October 31st, 1803.
MY DEAR FH.IEND,

I HAVE this morning received by post your delightful
treaty, and S. H. Smith's paper, and your esteemed favour,
in which you give me a particular account of yourself and your
accommodations. This latter is really more interesting to my
curiosity and feelings than the rest of the contents under cover.

THERE is little room for hope, almost none for satisfaction,
in the contemplation of publick affairs. When somebody, a
jacobin too, drives, we must go ; and we shall go the old and
broad road, so smooth, so much travelled, but without any half
way house.

HAVING bought an empire, who is to be cmperour ? The
sovereign people — and what people ? all, or only the people of
the dominant states, and the dominant demagogues in those
states, who call themselves the people ? As in old Rome,
Marius or Sylla, or Cesar, Pompey, Antony, or Lepidus will
vote themselves provinces and triumphs.

I HAVE as loyal and respectful an opinion as possible of the
sincerity in folly of our rulers. But, surely, it exceeds all my
credulity and candour on that head, to suppose even they can
contemplate a republican form as practicable, honest, or free,
if applied when it is so manifestly inapplicable to the govern
ment of one third of God's earth. It could not, I think, even
maintain forms ; and as to principles, the otters would as soon
obey and give them effect as the G atto- His jiano- Indian omnium
gatherum of savages and adventurers, whose pure morals are
expected to sustain and glorify our republick. Never before
was it attempted to play the fool on so great a scale. The
game will not, however, be half played ; nay, it will not be
begun, before it is changed into another, where the knave will
turn up trumps and win the odd trick.

PROPERTY at pubiick disposal is sure to corrupt. Here, to
make this result equally inevitable and inveterate, power is

LETTERS. 485

*lso to be for some ages within the arbitrium of a house of
representatives. Before that period, Botany bay will be a bet-
tering-house for our publick men. Our morals, for ever sun
ning and flyblown, like fresh meat hung up in the election
market, will taint the air like a pestilence. Liberty, if she is
not a goddess that delights in carnage, will choak in such an
atmosphere, fouler than the vapour of death in a mine.

YET I see, that the multitude are told, and it is plain they
are told, because they will believe it, that liberty will be a gainer
by the purchase. They are deceived on their weak side : they
think the purchase a great bargain. — We are to be rich by sel
ling lands. If the multitude was not blind before, their sordid
avarice, thus addressed, would blind them.

BUT what say your wise ones ? Is the payment of so many
millions to a belligerent no breach of neutrality, especially
under the existing circumstances of the case, when Great
Britain is fighting our battles and the battles of mankind, and
Erance is combating for the power to enslave and plunder us
and all the world ? Is not the twelve years reserve of a right to
navigate, Sec. a contravention of our treaty with Great Britain,
as all other nations are for twelve years excluded from a parti
cipation of this privilege, especially too as the increase of the
French and Spanish navigation is avowedly the object of the
stipulation ?

I HAVE not yet read the treaty. I have only glanced my
eye over the seventh article. I am weary and sick of my sub
ject.

MY health is bad, and is to be bad through the winter. I
sleep poorly, digest poorly, and often take cold. I persevere
hi riding on horseback, and shall saw wood in bad weather
when I cannot ride. I live like an ostrich or man-monkey,
imported from a foreign climate, and pining amidst plenty for
want^f the native food that would suit his stomach. Mine is as
fastidickis as a fine lady's, who is afraid of butter on her pota
toes, lest it should tinge her complexion.

I INTEND soon to try the lukewarm bath in the evening, not
often, but occasionally. A bad digestion is an evil not to br

486 LETTERS.

removed. Its effects I hope may be parried by finding some
thing that I can better digest than my usual food.
MY wife and I join in saying, God bless you.

Being your's Sec.

FISHER AMES.

TO THE SAME.

DEC HAM, November 29th, 1803.

YOUR letters, my dear friend, afford me so much pleasure
and information, that I cannot forbear writing without ingrati
tude, nor write without making very barren returns. Whether
bad health has abated my ardour in every thing, or that the
inevitable consequence of having nothing to do with our poli
ticks is, that I cease to care who has, or how the work is done,
the fact is certain, I am almost at home expatriated from the
concerns that once exclusively engrossed my thoughts. In this
philosophick, lack-a-daysical temper, I really think my fellow
sovereigns participate. Congress-hall is a stage, and by shift
ing the scenes, or treading the boards in comedy or farce, (for,
since the repeal of the judiciary, you do not get up tragedy)
you amuse our lazy mornings or evenings as much, or nearly
as much, as the other theatres. But in sober truth, the affair
is as much theatrical on our part as on that of the honourable
members on the floor. You personate the patriot, and we the
people affect the sovereign. We beg you to believe on the
evidence of the newspapers, that we watch you closely, and lie
awake a-nights with our fears for the publick safety. — No such
thing. We talk over our drink as much in earnest as we pos
sibly can, and among ourselves, when nobody is a looker-on
whose opinion we dread, we laugh in the midst of our counter
feit rage. The fact is, our folks are ten times more weary of
their politicks, than anxious about their results. Touch our
pockets directly, or our pleasures ever so indirectly, then see
our spirit. We flame, we soar on eagles' wings, as high as
barn-door fowl, and like them, we light to scratch again in

LETTERS. 487

the muckheap. Alter the constitution ; amend it till it is
good for nothing ; amend it again and again, till it is worse
than nothing ; violate without altering its letter, it is your
sport, not our's. Our apathy is a match for your party spirit.
The dead flesh defies your stimulants. We sleep under the
operation of your knife, as the Dutchman is said to have gnaw
ed a roasted fowl, while the surgeon cut off his leg. There is
no greater imposture than to pretend our people watch, un
derstand, or care a sixpence for these cheap sins, or the dis
tant damnation they will draw down on our heads. If honest
men could associate for honest purposes, if we had in short a
party, which I think federalists have not, or have not had the
stuff to make, their steady opposition to the progress of a fac
tion towards tyranny, revolutionary tyranny, might be checked.
I wave .the subject, however, on which I have a thousand
times vented my vexations to no purpose. Peace to the dead.

LOUISIANA excites less interest than our thanksgiving. It
is an old story. I am half of Talleyrand's opinion, when he
says, we are phlegmatick, and without any passion except that
for money-getting.

MR. Huger, in his speech on the alteration of the clause
respecting the votes for president and vice president, pays
compliments to the candour and sincerity of the amendment-
mongers, when they protest and swear, that they want no other
amendment. This compliment is not worth much to the re
ceivers, but is a costly one to the bestower. Roland and Con-
dorcet always protested, that they would stop. But is a revo
lution or the lightning to be stopped in midway ? Mr. E. has
libelled the constitution in a newspaper. The Virginia as
sembly has voted amendments of the most abominable sort.
All the noble lords of Virginia and the South are as much for
rotation in office as the senators of Venice. It is the genuine
spirit of an oligarchy, eager to divide power among them
selves, and jealous of the pre-eminence of any one even of
their own order.

MR. R. in his speech on the constitutionality of acquiring
territory, has risen again in my opinion. I cannot readily as-

488 LETTERS,

sent to the federal argument, that our government is a mere
affair of special pleading, and to be interpreted in every case as
if every thing was written down in a book. Are not certain
powers inseparable from the fact of a society's being formed,
are they not incident to its being ? Besides, as party inter
prets and amends the constitution, and as' we the people care
not a pin's point for it, all arguments from that source, how
ever solid, would avail nothing.

ONE of two things will, I confess, take place : either the
advances of the faction will create a federal party, or their un
obstructed progress will embolden them to use their power,
as all such gentry will if they dare, in acts of violence on pro
perty. In the former case, a federal party, with the spirit
which in every other free country political divisions impart to
a minority, will retard and obstruct the course of the ruling
faction towards revolution ; and if they do not move quick,
they will not, perhaps, be able long to move at all. In case
of a strong opposition (I use the term in a qualified and guard
ed sense) the federalists could preserve some portion of right,
though they might not have strength to re-assume power, which
I confess I do not look for.

SUPPOSE an attack on property, I calculate on the " sensi
bilities" of our nation. There is our sensorium. Like a ne
gro's shins, there our patriotism would feel the kicks, and
twinge with agonies that we should not be able so much as to
conceive of, if we only have our faces spit in. In this case
we rcould wipe off the ignominy, and think no more of the
matter. He that robs me of my good name, takes trash.
What is it but a little foul breath, tainted from every sot's
lungs ? But he who takes my purse, robs me of that which
enriches him, instead of me, and therefore I will have ven
geance.

HENCE I am far from despairing of our commonwealth. It
is true, our notions are pestilent and silly. But we have been
cured already in fourteen years of more of them than a civil
war and ten pitched battles would have eradicated from France.

LETTERS. 489

The remainder are, indeed, enough to ensure our destruction ;
and we should be destroyed, if these silly democratick opin
ions, which once governed us all, were not now so exclusively
claimed and carried to extremes by those whom we so dread
and despise, that we in New-England are in a great measure
driven out of them. The fool's cap has been snatched from our
heads by the Southern demos, who say, this Olympick crown
was won by them. Let them wear it.

CONNECTICUT is sound enough perhaps; for if democracy
were less in that state, federalism would sink with them as in
the other states. But their first men are compelled to come
forward in self-defence. They are in the federal army what
the immortals were in the Persian, or the sacred band under
Pelopidas. I will not mention Vermont. Rhode-Island is not
to be spoken of by any body. But New-Hampshire, old Mas
sachusetts, and Connecticut are too important to be forced in
to a revolution ; and at present appearances do not indicate,
that they will join in hastening it on willingly.

FOR these and other reasons I think our condition may not
soon be changed so essentially as, in like critical circum
stances, it would be in any other country. , We shall lose, in
deed, almost every thing, but my hope is, that we shall save
something and preserve it long.

THUS we may, like a wounded snake, drag our slow length
along for twenty years ; and time will in that period have more
to do in fixing our future destiny than our administration.
Events govern us ; and probably those of Europe will, as
heretofore, communicate an unforeseen and irresistible im
pulse to our politicks. We are in a gulf stream, which has
hitherto swept us along with more force than our sails and
oars. I think the government will last my time. For that
reason, I will fatten my pigs and prune my trees ; nor will
I any longer be at the trouble to govern this country. I
am no Atlas, and my shoulders ache. No, that irksome task
I devolve upon Mr. *****, and Mr. ***** of the house, and
Mr. ***** of the senate. You federalists are only lookers on,

190 LETTERS.

You are a polite man, otherwise you would say I have tired
you. In that respect I have used you as well as I do myself.
In mercy to both, I this moment assure you of the affection
ate regard, with which I am, my dear friend,
Your's truly,

FISHER AMES.

10 MK. *********, MEMBER OF CONGRESS, AT WASHINGTON.

DEDHAM, November 27th, 1805.
MY DEAR SIR,

THERE' is a good deal of ferment in Boston, and, I sup
pose, in all our sea-ports, in consequence of some late condem
nations by the British. It is hard for people who lose money
t6 believe, that those who get it by their loss can have any
justice on their side. When the French and Spaniards take
our vessels, we are not very angry, because we do not imagine
they have power enough at sea greatly to extend the evil ;
and we expect from them no regard to principles of any sort.
But the English captures and condemnations alarm us, because
we can scarcely see what there is that they cannot take ; and
they provoke us, because we discern, or affect to discern, the
perversion or evasion of principles, admitted and respected
as much by them as by ourselves.

I AM so unlucky as to be a considerable loser in the insu
rance office where these condemnations are felt.* I am pa
triot enough to lament any obstruction to the growth of our
commerce ; and I am not philosopher enough to be indifferent
to the reduction of my property. For some time past I have
tried, with a good promise of success, to convince myself, that
the principles assumed by the British are untenable. My rage
has not risen to fever heat, and my faith has gradually sunk
down to the freezing point. To drop all metaphor, I am
afraid the British are in the right in point of principle.

* The writer was a proprietor to the amount of one third of all his personal property in
sin office, whose interest was believed to he extremely injured by the principle asserted by
the admiralty courts ; but his honest heart compelled him to reason against his interest.

LETTERS. 491

BOOKS afford but a dim light on such a subject. I do not
pretend, that I have much consulted them.

WAR is an old condition of mankind, and commerce, as it
is now carried on, is a new one. Anciently, the nations de
pended less on crossing the sea and more on the traffick by
land than we do. J\toiv the articles of indispensable necessity
to most countries are drawn from the East and West Indies.
Navies too were, before the invention of the mariner's com
pass, less used, and less capable of being used, for long cruises,
for traversing the wide ocean, and for searching and com
manding all its shores than they are at this day.

HENCE it is, that the rights of war, in respect to the exer
cise or restraint of the naval power of states, seem to me more
unsettled, than any questions arising from the employment ot
forces on land. We are obliged to resort to general rules,
which every body will admit in their principle, and contest in
their application. Scarcely any doubts subsist in regard to
military land operations ; but almost every thing is considered,
or you will find people who affect to consider it, as novel, or
dubious, or an abuse in the employment of a naval force, when
neutrals are concerned. We hear of a modern law of nations,
and of the adverse constructions of the maritime law, assumed,
varied, and abandoned, as interests and alliances may happen
to inspire zeal and sophistry to invent and maintain them.

THIS leads some persons to say, the maritime law has no
principles ; an inference altogether unwarranted. The general
principles are just, and their authority is not contested ; but the
whole modern system of commerce and naval power is so re
cent, that these principles have not been long enough applied
under a great diversity of circumstances to make their appli
cation familiar and precise.

PERHAPS it may be said, the present position of things in
Europe is unlike what has existed there in all former wars,
except the last. Prior to the war which ended in 1763, Great
Britain was not possessed of the sovereignty of the seas. While
something like a naval equilibrium remained, there was neither
inducement nor occasion to apply the British principles in re-

492 LETTERS.

gard to an enemy's colonies, as they are to be deduced from
the late condemnations. While France could fit out fleets,
and take British colonies, and intercept British trade or con
voy, and protect her own, she was not obliged to sell her colo*
ny products to neutrals to so great an extent as she has been
under the necessity of doing ever since 1794 or 1795. The
assistance of neutrals has become her only resource for draw
ing a cent from her colonies. Of course, by the superiority
of the British naval arms, the colonies of her enemy are put
out of a condition to assist the parent country in war almost
as effectually as if they were captured and garrisoned by
Britons.

WHEN it is considered, that all the means of Great Britain
to annoy, exhaust, and subdue her antagonist, and finally to
prescribe a peace on terms compatible with her safety and ex
istence are naval means, it seems to ensue as a consequence,
that she has a right, while in a state of war, to use them
to the utmost extent that may be necessary for preservation.
Certainly she has a better right to exist, than neutrals have to
trade. Self-preservation is the paramount law of states as well
as individuals. If, therefore, the rights of neutrals happen to
interfere with this superiour right of the belligerent, they
must yield, and be exercised only so far as may consist with it.

NECESSITY, I shall be told, is the tyrant's plea. I reply,
when that truly exists it is a good one, and for that reason
tyrants resort to it when it does not exist.

BEFORE the independence of the United States, Great Bri
tain had it not in her power thus effectually to lock up her ene
my's colonies. France then also had fleets to protect them ;
and she had merchant ships to transport their rich produce to
the markets of Europe. Even then, however, Great Britain's
maritime principles were enforced against the Dutch and
other neutrals. But, since the independence of America, cir
cumstances have changed ; and if the change has not given
birth to new principles, it affords new light in the application
of old ones.

LETTERS. 493

France has not even a sloop or schooner employed in
her colonial commerce. She is reduced to absolute nullity
and impotence by the British navy, as to all the resources she
once drew from her colonies. Who will hesitate in admitting,
that this use of the British navy is to the last degree impor
tant to her, distressing, humbling, enfeebling to her enemy,
and perhaps ultimately decisive of the event of the war by its
influence on the comparative force of the two nations ? Every
dollar received by France from her colonies would be employ
ed against England. This is prevented by England. More
over, the British colonies thrive directly and essentially by the
exclusion of their hostile rivals from the European market ;
and the British commerce is even augmented by the circuitous
and expensive supplies, which France ultimately receives.

THESE, no doubt, are inducements for the British to exer
cise, and, possibly, to stretch all the maritime rights they have
as a belligerent nation. If we hesitate to allow, that the ex
clusion of neutrals from enemies' colonies is one of those
rights, because the admission would too much restrict neutral
commerce, let us suppose the British principle unfounded and
reject it. If we find, that by its rejection the rights of the
belligerent are annihilated, shall we not hesitate still more ?
Shall we not discern still greater difficulties ? Being reduced
to choose between two rival doctrines, shall we not endeavour
to test them both by their operation, and prefer that which
can be best reconciled with reason and justice ?

SUPPOSE, then, that Great Britain, with a power to hinder,
has no right to hinder the exportation of the products of the
French colonies to any European neutral port — of what use or
efficacy is her navy in the prosecution of the war, so far as the
colonies of her enemy are concerned ? America, now indepen
dent, full of enterprise and capital, with a million tons of ship
ping, can buy in the islands, store in the United States, and
transport to neutral ports in Europe convenient for the supply
of France herself, every hogshead of sugar, and every bag of
coffee that can be furnished by the plantations, on such terms
that the French colonies shall not feel the war. They shall

494 LETTERS,

not be annoyed by the British naval arms, but shall even flourish
the more for their superiority. Depending entirely on neutrals,
they shall lose nothing by captures, because, having sold their
produce, they risk nothing ; while British produce is liable to
capture, and, if not captured, to high war premiums of insu
rance. The French colonist would ultimately, if not immedi
ately, command a price for his crops, the more advantageous
by reason of the cheap and safe navigation of American vessels ;
he would prosper in full peace, while the British colonist
would feel the effects of war on his profits. His only market
would be England, because he would be undersold on the con
tinent. The seamen withdrawn from the French colonial com
merce would be, as in fact they are, on board their men of war,
or in the armies ; and the resources of the colonies would be
steadily and without diminution by capture drawn by France
into her own territory, and employed to equip flotillas and array
armies of invasion against England.

I CANNOT help observing) if all this be right in principle, it
is a principle that will never be of any authority or value in
practice. For whoever may happen to have the power to
hinder these consequences, will surely employ a superiour
fleet to hinder them. It seems, therefore, to be a discourag
ing labour, to establish such a nugatory interpretation of the
maritime law of nations as we are sure from its very nature
the powerful must reject.

WE claim a right to trade to the French, Dutch, or Spanish
colonies, and to convey their produce to any countries that will
receive it. We say, that these nations, though enemies of
England, are our friends, with whom we have long been ac
customed to trade ; that they have adequate authority to adjust
with us the terms of our intercourse with all their*"territories,
the colonies as well as the parent countries ; and that, as our
neutral traffick with these colonies is carried on in consequence
of acts or laws of those parent countries, it is a lawful trade,
and the interruption of it by the British cruisers has all the
qualities of tyranny and injustice.

LETTERS. 495

THE British cabinet might, I am afraid, confound our logick
by replying : you have a right, as neutrals, to traffick with our
enemy to as great extent as you could before the war ; and
to that extent we do not now disturb your trade. But your
trade with the enemy's colonies is not of that description. It
is not a privilege you derive from his grant, but from our
arms. It is a species of trade you did not enjoy before, and
never would have derived from the friendship of our enemy
towards you. He makes use of your neutrality to escape from
us. By your means the proceeds of his colonies become an
effective branch of his force. This we cannot suffer. His con
cession in opening his colonial ports is valid and legal, as re
gards the transactions between him and you ; but as between
us and you, it is a fraud, out of which no right can grow. It
is a fraud, because it invalidates our belligerent rights ; and
because, notoriously, our enemy never opens his colonies, till
he can no longer resist that reason for opening them Every
fraudulent deed or grant is absolutely void, as it respects third
persons who have bona fide titles.

IF we attempt to answer this argument by ever so loud an
invective against the sweeping tyranny of their principle, they
would not fail to insist, that no principle can be less chargeable
as arbitrary or indefinite than that which they enforce. It is
not arbitrary, because it does not depend in the least on Great
Britain to open the colonies of her rivals in time of peace ; it
is not indefinite, because England even now forbears to urge
her claim beyond the practice and course of trade before the
war.

WHAT then, she might say, do I restrict or abridge of the
American liberty of commerce ? Surely not your usual inter
course with France, Spain, and Holland. I allow all that they
ever allowed, till, in fact, they had nothing left to allow or refuse,
having lost all power of protection or control over their colonies
by the superiority of my navy. You may supply your own con
sumption by your direct trade with those colonies. You may
trade with such of those colonies as were open to you be
fore the, war. I abstain from condemning your cargoes of

496 LETTERS.

colonial produce, if I find it has been landed in the United
States, and mixed with the mass of your property. A voyage
from those colonies to the United States, as a mere cloak for
the prosecution of the voyage to Europe, I consider illegal.

HAD this doctrine of the British admiralty been early and
publickly known, I cannot but suppose it would have been
acquiesced in. Why our administration have neglected or
forborne to ask explanations, or to make remonstrances on the
subject, is unintelligible, if they comprehend our commercial
rights, and care as they ought for our interests.

WHAT remains now to be done, is not for me to decide.
Confiscation will be wicked and violent, and a non-intercourse
act will be foolish and violent. There is no stopping at such
measures — war would ensue. That is not the desire of our
rulers. How then can they gratify their own prejudices, and
escape the curses of the French party, if they neither con
fiscate nor stop intercourse ? To avow, that they intend to do
nothing, is impossible ; to do any thing by a treaty, they dare
not even contemplate. Will they not instruct Munroe to ask
explanations, affect ad interim to bluster, and secretly resolve
to acquiesce in every thing, usurpation or not usurpation, that
shall reduce the Yankee merchants to impotence and poverty ?
Will not the crisis by. these means pass away in speeches and
smoke ? and if Britain should lose her allies and her spiYits,
will they not then pay court to Buonaparte, by venturing to
insist upon her concessions ?

IT is one of the most consuming curses of heaven, and we
deserve it, to commit the affairs of a nation to rulers, who find
in their popularity, their rapacity, or their ambition, an interest
separate from the interests of the people.

MY sentiments are frankly and unreservedly given to you ;
but as they are hastily conceived and expressed, I may, possi
bly, on meditation, retract them.

Yours, Sec.

FISHER AMES.

LETTERS. 497

TO MR. ******, AT SPRINGFIELD.

DEDHAM, November 29, 1805.
Thanksgiving Evening.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

N. is better. His leg is yet much swelled, but nearly
free from pain, and the doctor hopes no suppuration will
ensue. You will rejoice with us, for our revived hopes make
a truly joyful thanksgiving. In every other respect, it is
dull enough.

M. and H. are at my mother's, in search of something
more cheerful than my house affords. They have fine spi
rits, and improve, I make no doubt, by their Medford school.
My John W. sits by me at his book, " the world forgetting"
and enjoying a thanksgiving feast for his mind. It is true,
he reads on such occasions for amusement, but I indulge
him, for I hope something will stick to him. The habit of
literary labour may be ingrafted on the free stock of literary
curiosity. I will not defend my metaphor, but I believe my
meaning is expressed clearly by it. A passion for books is
never inspired, I believe, late, in the breasts of those, who,
having access to books, do not feel it young. But to apply,
to investigate closely, to -study, to make the mind ivork, is a
very different thing from a passionate fondness for battles and
romances. It is by performing tasks, not by choosing books
for their amusement, that boys obtain this power to fix and
detain attention.

BUT is there encouragement in our country to educate
boys for any great degree of usefulness ? While faction is
forging our fetters, the specious talents are more in demand
than the solid. But after a tyranny is settled, perhaps, our
Augustus will have a^ fancy, that learning is an essential
thing to his glory. Nero pretends to be an artist him
self, and would feel himself eclipsed by the excellence of
another.

498 LETTERS.

EVERY popular despotism is, I believe, in its inception
base and tasteless. As great geniuses snatch the sceptre
from the hands of great little rascals, the government rises,
though liberty rises no more. Ours is gone, never to return.
To mitigate a tyranny, is all that is left for our hopes. We
cannot maintain justice by the force of our constitution ; yet,
I think, the spirit of commerce, which cannot be separated
from the Yankee mind, is favourable to justice. To guard
property by some good rules, is a necessary of life in every
commercial state.

BUT it is foolish, or rather it is presumptuous, to specu
late on the untried state of being that our degraded country-
has to pass through.

Vestibulum ante ipsum, primoque in limine Ditis
Luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curse.

I quote from memory of Virgil's sixth book, perhaps not
correctly *. The application seems to me fearfully correct.
At the threshold of our new state of being, we are to meet
the Luctus et ultrices Curae.

I WILL leave my letter open till morning, to inform you
more of N.

Your affectionate friend,

FISHER AMES

TO MR. *********? MEMBER OF CONGRESS, AT WASHINGTON.

DEDHAM, January 28th, 1806.
MY DEAR SIR,

I HAVE had it in my thoughts to examine the question
of our right to trade with the revolted part of St. Domingo,
as it is laid down in books. And I well know, that to meddle
with it in a loose way is peculiarly improper in a letter to

* Virgil's words are :

Vestibulum ante ipsum, primisque iu laucibus Orci

Luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curse.

Just in the gate, and in the jaws of hell,

Revengeful, Caret and sullen Soirmvs (hvcll, Dryden.

LETTERS. 499

you, who spare no pains to get at truth, and hold every sub
stitute for it in contempt. Nevertheless, as I perceive I shall
be occupied on some turnpike business and hindered from
reading writers on the law of nations, I feel a desire to com
municate such thoughts as rise uppermost.

NATIONS very properly abstain from assuming the deci
sion of questions of right between any two contending powers.
Facts alone are regarded. When, therefore, one state claims
from another subjection and obedience, which that other
refuses to yield, and maintains its refusal by successful arms,
no third power will constitute itself the judge of the legiti
macy of its reasons for so refusing. The actual possession
of independence is ground enough for holding a state inde
pendent of right, as far as third parties are concerned nation-
ally. I mean, that the trade to such a self-made new state
is not a national offence against the power claiming sover
eignty over the revolted country. This intercourse is at the
peril of the private individuals concerned, whose cargoes
may be seized and confiscated by the cruisers of the offended
nation. But their so continuing to trade, seems not obviously
to implicate the nation to which the traders belong, unless that
nation, or its government, should do some act, whereby such
responsibility is assumed. For the greater clearness I will
put a case. The Dutch assumed independence in 1570 or 80.
While this event was recent, and the contest depending, the
Dutch cities suffering sieges, and the armies of Spain supe-
riour in the field in Holland, the supply of arms by queen
Elizabeth was, of course, an act of aggression. But for a
London merchant to send flour or sugar at the risk of capture
by the Spaniards, it seems to me, would not amount to an
act of intermeddling by the English government ; especially,
I will add, if the queen had, by proclamation, apprized her
subjects, that a civil war raged in Holland, in which she
would take no part, and that she forbade her subjects trad
ing with the Dutch, on the peril of capture as aforesaid by
the Spaniards, in which case she would not claim restitution,

000 LETTERS.

nor afford protection to the captured. The war would then
proceed by Spain against English traders ; and the supplies
poured into Holland would afford no ground for hostilities
against England.

BUT after the Spanish armies were beaten out of the coun
try, and after the lapse of near thirty years without any effort
to subdue the Dutch, the capture of such vessels would be
apparently unjust.

WHETHER the suspension of the efforts of France to re
cover St. Domingo, merely because of the war with England,
amounts to an abandonment of the colony, is questionable.
There is, in fact, no doubt she intends to resume the busi
ness as soon as the mare clausum becomes once more a
mare liberum by a peace with Great Britain. Ad interim
any national act of intermeddling on the part of the United
States in favour of Dessalines would be an aggression. Per
mitting the use of force against French captures may pos
sibly be unwarrantable. But the declaring by Mr. Jeffer
son's proclamation, that traders taken in such commerce will
not be protected, in other words, that they traffick with Des
salines at their peril, i. e. the peril of capture by the French,

1 should think, would exculpate our government and nation,
on principle.

FOR congress to legislate seems to me quite another thing.
It is ex abundantia, it is more than France can properly re
quire. If Mr. Jefferson should issue a proclamation, declar
ing the trade unauthorized and at the peril of the concerned,
it would be left to the French to enforce the law as it now
exists by capturing the vessels, if they can. But for us to
extend or create rights and remedies for them ; to say, you
cannot catch these wrong-doers, but we can and will, seems
to be journey-work for Buonaparte. As I premised, it quits
the ground of matter of fact for perplexing theories. If the
power of France is not adequate to exclude St. Domingo
from the exercise of its independence* it has just the same
right, the right of the strongest, to independence, upon

LETTERS. 501

which other nations found their exercise of it. It is already
de facto, and, of course, de jure independent.

ON the other hand, if France has means to cut off the trade
of that island, and to capture the vessels concerned in it, let
her use those means. We abandon our traders to capture.

THUS the question is left to work its own peaceable deci
sion, without compromitting the tranquillity, dignity, or
rights of either the United States or France. Has the latter
any right beyond the foregoing, i. e. to a publick disclaimer
by proclamation of all protection to those concerned in trad
ing, and to a faithful forbearance to form treaties or afford
any aid, as a government, to the black emperour. Is not the
request, or rather insolent claim of more than this an admis
sion; that St. Domingo is lost to France, and that the United
States must turn the war into a blockade to starve the blacks
into submission? Is it not saying to us, we do not merely
ask your forbearance — we insist on your co-operation ; you
must meddle, but only on our side ?

IF my ideas are made intelligible, they seem to me of
some use to discriminate the line of right and duty in the
case, which line, perhaps, is to admit, that the French have
rights, and leave them to exercise them as they now exist ;
but to refuse legislating for extending those rights or en
forcing them by our power.

As to the line of policy, I can scarcely doubt, that we ought
to shun a quarrel with France upon the point, if France
contents herself with claiming no more than an existing right,
and the enforcing it by capturing the vessels in rhe trade.
If she claims more from the United States as a vassal, our
dignity should be temperately asserted, and her demand
civilly but firmly refused. We ought by no means to com
mit ourselves to the discredit of a treaty with Dessalines, or
in any way to intermeddle as a government. But we ought
to wish most earnestly, that Hayti may maintain its indepen
dence ; and so much the more, as the colonial systems of all
nations may be expected on a peace to abridge our inter
course with the dependent islands.

502 LETTERS.

I HAVE run the risk to write these crude conceptions as
fast as I can drive my quill, and I can assure you, I shall
feel no mortification, if it should turn out, that I commit
several mistakes in the argument.

I am, dear sir,

With unfeigned esteem
Your's, Sec.

FISHER AMES.

P. S. IT occurs to me to add, that there is some, though.
1 am aware, not a close analogy between the case of our trade
with Hayti and the revenue laws of foreign nations. To en
force these, one state never asks legislative or any other aid
from another. Yet smuggling is an evil. I know it has been
said, that the reason for this mutual forbearance is, that re
venue laws arc merely municipal, and create neither right
nor obligation out of the territory for which they were made.

BUT, as a matter of right^ we equally abstain from the
question depending in arms between the two emperours,
Dessalines and Napoleon. The fact, that St. Domingo once
acknowledged, and now refuses to acknowledge the supreme
authority of France, is all that we know or will, if we are
wise, concern ourselves to know. The rights claimed by
France are merely, that we shall not intermeddle in the con
test ; not that we shall help her.

JUSTICE requires, that I should make it understood, that
I claim from you no answers to my communications. I would
sooner suppress such of my letters, than have them operate
to impose a task on you.

TO MR. ****** ^ AT SPRINGFIELD.

DEDHAM, February 1st, 1806.

Saturday.
My DEAR FRIEND,

ALL habits grow stronger as we grow older ; and I am
sorry to find, that the bad habit of neglecting to write t&

LETTERS. 503

you becomes more inveterate by indulgence. I condemn
myself for it, and go round the beaten circle of resolving to
do better in future. But what avail wise saws against fool
ish propensities ?

HAPPENING to be in the office, pen and ink before me,
and expecting your brother J. this evening, I say to myself,
nick the moment, and write, or you will persist in your sins,
and aggravate them by your fruitless repentance. Con
science, which will sometimes meclclie against old sinners,
speaks out, contrary to custom, with some authority, and I
obey.

THESE few lines come to let you know, that I am very
well, sickness excepted, as I hope you are, without excep
tion, at this present writing. Want of exercise brings want
of appetite, that furs my tongue and dulls my wits. I sleep
worse, and yet am a sleepy fellow ; and on the whole have
ground for two dozen complaints about my health, and not
one new apprehension.

WHY did you not invite me to visit Springfield ? That
omission, some care of our ever-depending turnpike, the
depth of the snow, and its faithless appearance in this thawy
weather, banish or retard the'project I wish to ripen and exe
cute of going with my one horse cutter to your town. Why
should I not? Do I not want some of your large pepper
seed ? The dry season forbade mine to ripen. Do I not want
to see your great bridge ? Do I not want to drink your cider,
which article is scarce here ? How reasons thicken in my
catalogue. Yet as they govern me just -as little as they do
the rest of this stubborn, unreasonable world, I think it
probable I shall not go; and that on the aforesaid grounds it
is much more proper, that you and your good wife should
come here, although you could not find one of the reasons
for it that I have urged in my own case.

As you would not come for pepper seed, nor to drink cider,
nor to see the Dedham canal up Charles river, which is not to
be seen, I will readily admit that you both come to see Mrs. A.

504 LETTERS.

and your humble servant. I will not enlarge on the weight
these last motives would have with any other good people,
but my vanity stiffly maintains, that they have influence with
you. Indeed it founds itself a good deal on such kind of
pretensions.

SIR, I was elected president — not of the United States ;
and do you know why I did not accept? I had no inclina
tion for it. The health I have would have been used up at
Cambridge in a year. My old habits are my dear comforts,
and these must have been violently changed.

How much I was in a scrape in consequence of the offer,
and with what three weeks mystery and address I extri
cated myself, are themes for conversation when we meet.
I have extricated myself, and feel like a truck or stage horse,
who is once more allowed to roll in the dirt without his har
ness. Every body has heard of Mrs. A's. proposing that I
should take H. A. if I went to Cambridge, as she would
neither go nor learn Greek.

APROPOS of Hannah Adams. Her abridgement of her
history of New-England for the use of schools has, I believe,
superiour merit. I have read a chapter, and, after reading
more, shall put my name to the recommendation of the
work. Young ******* ********* and others, friends to
modest merit, have bought the whole of her first edition,
and a second is preparing. I wish to see it in use.

ARE you sharp shooters of Hampshire ready to get the
bounty for Englishmen's scalps? ******'s intemperate folly
shews the temper of the ruling party. If a step should be
stirred onward in that path, we are plump in a war. I have
hoped, that the sacred shield of cowardice, as Junius calls it,
would protect our peace. I still hope. Yet this tongue
couruge is a bad omen. If we assert rights, that we cannot
maintain by argument, and that we will not enforce by arms,
what follows from our so early putting down our foot ; so
positively stating, that Britain usurps our rights, and that
we never will abandon them ? What, Lsay, but an increased
and a very unnecessary propensity on both sides to war ; an

LETTERS. 505

indisposition to negotiation, " the only umpire between just
nations ;" and a tenfold disgrace, if we tamely forbear to en
force our claims, or explicitly renounce them ? In point of
true dignity or common prudence this preliminary engagement
of our government to be inflexible seems singularly absurd.
Mr. Madison's great pamphlet on the maritime principle of
Great Britain, however plausible and ingenious, is an indis
creet pledge of the government and of the publick opinion to
maintain what we know England will not concede and we will
not enforce.

I COULD subjoin, that the chief labour of Madison is to
shew, that Great Britain has no right from old treaties nor
from old writers. He might as well shew, that neither Aris
totle nor the laws of Solon make any mention of such a prin
ciple. A new state of things exists, and a new case requires
a new application of old principles. Here I strongly appre
hend, the decision will be against us at "the bar of reason"
where Mr. Jefferson, like the crier, summons Mr. Pitt to ap
pear and answer. How is it possible for Great Britain to de
fend herself, without the utmost use of her navy ? and how can
she use her navy with any effect against her deadly enemy,
if she leaves his colony trade free to neutrals, and thereby
makes that immense fund of wealth cheaply accessible to
France ? I confess I know not. But why do I bore you with a
prize question ?

N. continues to mend. We are air well. Thank you for
more of Doctor Lathrop. Remember me to all friends, es
pecially to those of your household. A kiss for little Bess.

Your's, 8cc.

FISHER >MES.

64

506 LETTERS.

TO MR. *********, MEMBER OF CONGRESS, AT WASHINGTON.

DEDHAM, February 14th, 1806.
MY DEAR SIR,

I HAVE sent your letters to Mr. *****, who, I am sure,
will think their contents as interesting as I do. Indeed, " they
suit the gloomy habit of my soul,'* as Young says in his Zanga.
I am infinitely dejected with the view of Europe, as well as
of our own country ; and I begin to consider the utmost extreme
of publick evils as more dreadfully imminent than ever I
did before. I have long consoled myself with believing,
that the germs of political evil as well as of good lie long,
like the unnumbered seeds of every species of plants, in the
ground without sprouting ; and that it was unnecessary and
unwise to contemplate the possibilities of national servitude,
and, more properly, of universal convulsion ancf ruin under a
French empire as either very near or very probable. Late
events, I confess, lessen my confidence in the military capa
city of resistance of all the foes of France, England not ex-
cepted. A fate seems to sweep the prostrate world along,
that is not to be averted by submission, nor retarded by arms.
The British navy stands like Briareus, parrying the thunder
bolts, but can hurl none back again ; and if Buonaparte effects
his conquest of the dry land, the empire of the sea must in
the end belong to him. That he will reign supreme and
alone on the continent is to be disputed by nobody but Russia ;
and if pride, poverty, distance, false ambition, or fools in his
cabinet persuade the emperour Alexander to make a separate
peace, France must be Rome, and Russia, Parthia, invincible
and insignificant. The second Punick war must terminate in
that case, for aught I can see, in the ruin of England ; and the
world must bow its base neck to the yoke. It will sweat in
servitude and grope in darkness, perhaps, another thousand
years. For the emulation of the European states, extinguish
ed by the establishment of one empire, will no longer sustain

LETTERS, 507

the arts. They and the sciences will soon become the cor-
rupters of society. It is already doubtful, whether the press
is not their enemy.

I MAKE no doubt, Buonaparte will offer almost carte blanche
to Russia and Austria, saving only his rights as master ; and I
greatly fear, that Russia will be lured, as Austria will be forc
ed, to abandon Great Britain. Another peace makes Buona
parte master of Europe.

RUSSIA has soldiers, and they are brave enough ; and I
should think so vast an augmentation of the French empire
would seem to Alexander to demand the exertion of all his
vast energies. Without Pitt's gold, this will be a slow and
inadequate exertion ; and how Pitt is to get money, if neutrals
take this generous opportunity to quarrel with him, I can
not see.

IF we intend to quarrel and to assert our claims in arms, it
may be wise and right to take up our cause as we do ; for if
England will not recede, we cannot honourably — which last
word, I well know, is a mere expletive, of no more import
than a semicolon, or rather an interjection. If we resolve,
that Great Britain shall fight or yield, and that theUnited States
will sooner fight than yield, it is all of a piece to argue and
bluster as we do. But on the hypothesis, that we mean peace
in every event, the folly of this prompt assumption of our ulti
matum is strange. I am the more ready to think it so, because
I expect to hear John Bull say, he is as little convinced as
afraid. Like a good citizen, I am silent while our side is
argued ; but I am far from thinking it impossible, that the
question should appear to the candid and intelligent to have
another side. If it has, I abstain from all insult and reproach
and from all feelings of indignation against Great Britain for
her alleged " interpolations."

IT is ever a misfortune for a man to differ from the political
or religious creed of his countiymen. You will not fail to, per
ceive, that I am worse than a lingerer in my faith in the con-
clusiveness of the reasoning of Mr. Madison 8c Co. This,
however, I keep to myself and less than half a dozen friends.

508 LETTERS.

As you seem to be more orthodox than I am on this article, I
am the more ready to applaud your generous and just senti
ments in favour of the British cause against France.

IT has never happened, I believe, for any great length of
time, that our American affairs have been much governed
either by our policy or blunders. Events abroad have impos
ed both their character and result ; and I see no reason to
doubt, that this is to be the case more than ever. If France
dictates by land and sea, we fall without an effort. The wind
of the cannon-ball that smashes John Bull's brains out, will
lay us on our backs with all our tinsel honours in the dirt.

THEREFORE, I think I may, and I feel that I must return
to European affairs.

Two obstacles, and only two, impede the establishment of
universal monarchy : Russia and the British navy. The mili
tary means of the former are vast, her troops numerous and
brave. Of money she has little, but a little goes a great way,
for every thing is cheap. This is owing to the barbarism of
her inhabitants. Now for revenue a highly civilized state is
most favourable. But for arms, I beg leave to doubt, whether
men half savage are not best. Not because rude nations have
more courage than those that are polished, but because they
have not such an invincible aversion to a military life as the
sons of luxury and pleasure, and the sons of labour too, in the
latter. As society refines, greater freedom of the choice of
life is progressively allowed ; and the endless variety of employ
ments and arts of life attaches men, and almost all the men, to
the occupations of peace. To bring soldiers into the field, the
prince must overbid the allurements of these occupations. He
exhausts his treasury without filling his camp.

BUT in Russia men are yet cheap, as well as provisions.
Little is left to the peasantry to choose, whether they will stand
in the ranks or at a work-bench ; and though the emperour
may not incline absolutely to force men into the army, a sum
of money, that John Bull would disdain to accept, would allure
them in crowds. Russia in Asia is thinly settled. But Russia
in Europe is the seat of five-sixths of the inhabitants of the em-

LETTERS. 509

pire, and not very deficient in populousness, if we consider the
extent of unimprovable lands, and the little demand for manufac
turing labour. With thirty millions in Europe, Russia is surely
able to withstand Buonaparte ; and the latter will not long for
bear to say to ci-devant Poland : " shake off your chains, rise
to liberty and fraternity." Prussia and Austria could say nothing
against this ; but Russia could not and would not acquiesce
in it.

I AMUSE myself with inquiring into the existence of physi
cal means to resist France. I seem to forget, though in truth
I do not forget, that means twice as great once existed in the
hands of the feHen nations. They were divided in counsel,
and taken unprepared. Russia, being a single power, and un
tainted with revolution mania, and plainly seeing her danger,
ought to do more than all the rest. Yet, after all, I well know,
that, if small minds preside on great occasions, they are sure
to temporize, when the worst of all things is to do nothing ;
and very possibly the Russian cabinet sages partake of this
fatal blockheadship.

IT also seems to me, that the science, or, at least, the prac
tice of war has greatly changed since Marlborough's days. In
1702 to 1709 or 1710, he fought a great battle on a plain of
six miles extent. On gaining the victory, he besieged a for
tress as big as an Indian trading post, mined, scaled, battered,
and fought six weeks to take it, and then went into winter
quarters. Thus the war went on campaign after campaign,
as slowly as the Middlesex canal, which in eight years has
been dug thirty miles.

THE French have done with sie'ges and field battles. Posts
are occupied along the whole frontier line of a country. If
the line of defence be less extensive, they pass round it ; if
weakened by extent, through it. An immense artillery, light,
yet powerful, rains such a horrible tempest on any point that is
to be forced, that the defenders are driven back, before the
charge of the bayonet is resorted to. The lines once forced,
the defending army falls back, takes new positions, and again
loses them as before. Thus a country is taken possession of

512 LETTERS.

THE discords of your democratick leaders will raise hopes
of good, for the federalists are stubborn hofiers. ******** no
longer the guest of the great man's private board, no longer
his earwig, will not be his antagonist. If he is, he will lose
his party and his influence. These people may disagree about
the manner or even the extent of doing mischief, but to do
good they have neither inclination nor understanding. Our
disease is democracy. It is not the skin that festers — our very
bones are carious, and their marrow blackens with gangrene.
Which rogues shall be first, is of no moment — our republican
ism must die, and I am sorry for it. But why should we care
what sexton happens to be in office at our funeral Neverthe
less, though I indulge no hopes, I derive much entertainment
from the squabbles in madam Liberty's family. After so many
liberties have been taken with her, I presume she is no longer
a miss and a virgin, though she may still be a goddess.

IT is a mark of a little mind in a great man, to get such
people about him for favourites as our chief is said to prefer.
******* thought himself a Jupiter, and filled his Olympus
with buffoons, sots, and blockheads. Is our Jupiter to reign
another term of four years ? I am at a loss to comprehend his
ardent passion for buying territory. Is he land-mad, or is he
afflicted with a gun-powder-phobia. Admitting that, we must
either buy the Spanish right or take it. Reasons of the day
may decide in favour of buying, but a million mischiefs will
grow out of this enlargement of our territory, and some of
them at no great distance.

I AM flattered agreeably by finding, that you and Mr. ******
approve my opinions respecting St. Domingo. I have never
seen that gentleman, but I have, as every body here has, a very
high respect for his merit and talents. I lament, that they are
so much lost to our country, which, you know, is destined to
the grasp of all its vice and ambition, the ambition of its low
tyrants.

OUR election will excite at least as much zeal and bustle as
ever. We live in the island of Lemnos, and in Vulcan's own
shop : it seems as if we had no business but to forge party

LETTERS. 513

thunderbolts. We maintain, that there is as much honour as
noise in this happy situation, but surely we cannot deceive
ourselves so far as to suppose there ever will be any tran
quillity.

How numerous are the foes of order, and how incorrect as
well as faint-hearted are its friends ! ! With respect and un
feigned regard, I am, dear sir,

Your's truly,

FISHER AMES.

TO THE SAME.

DEDHAM, January 12th, 1807.
MY DEAR SIR,

THE man who never flatters cannot avoid furnishing the
occasions for his friends to flatter themselves. Indeed, their
being his friends will furnish one. Your kind wishes for my
health, in your favour of new-year's day will afford another. I
was much gratified by the perusal of the other parts of your
letter, but that part was not the least pleasing. In return, I
will wish, that fortune may serve you as well as you serve your
country, and that one of your rewards and enjoyments may be
to see it escape from the perils to which it is blind, and the
administration to which it is now partial.

You describe our dangers and disgraces with so just a dis
cernment of their causes, and with so much feeling for the
pubiick evils that will be their consequences, that I am ready
to Acquit former republicks from a good deal of the reproach
th. t has survived their ruin, the reproach of wanting sense to
see it, when it was obvious and near. Probably, however, we
shall yet find evidence enough in the works of their great wri
ters to prove, that the wise and good among their citizens did
foresee their fate, and would have resisted it, if they could ;
bu that a repubiick tends, experience says, irresistibly, towards
licentiousness, and that a licentious republirk or democracy is
65

514 LETTERS.

of all governments 'that very one in which the wise and good
are most completely reduced to impotence. Such men no
more deserve the reproach that their republicks fall, than that
ships are cast away at sea ; or, if I may drop all high metaphor
and speak like a farmer, that a fence falls, when it is support
ed by nothing but white birch stakes. It is the nature of these
to fail in two years ; and a republick wears out its morals
almost as soon as the sap of a white birch rots the wood.

AND are we not fated to have our present chief the longer
on account of his inefficiency ? His whole care is to be where
he is, and to do nothing to risk his place. Unless great pub-
lick disasters get the multitude angry with this do-nothing
policy, they will like it exceedingly. The chiefs of party, of
course, cannot get a handle to turn him out ; and their induce
ment to do it is always least, when the squad of the party that
is secretly opposed to him is the most clearly convinced of his
imbecility. It is not contempt, it is the dread of a really able
man at the head of a hostile party, that rouses all the fierce
ness of political competition.

IT is natural to ask, whether we are not hastening to the
time when publick disasters will make him obnoxious. It
seems to me probable, his election will happen first. Of course,
our country must remain unprepared, and be ruined, if it
please God to permit the British navy to belong to Buonaparte.
The Assyrian will tread us down like the mire of the streets.
I have read the tenth chapter of Isaiah, to which you refer me,
and I think it strikingly applicable to the French and to the
United States. As, however, the British navy may resist for
several years, we may be permitted without interruption to
finish our destruction ourselves.

I AM a little less disposed than most persons, to throw all
the blame of delaying to resist France on the king of Prussia.
Last fall I stated, that, unless the coalition would consent to
make him great ^ they had no right to expect to make him hos
tile to Buonaparte ; that small powers could not now exist in
Europe independent ; that Prussia would be ruined by France,
if he joined against her, and the coalition failed of its object ;

LETTERS. 515

that he would as certainly be ruined by his allies, if the coalition
succeeded, for he would be little and they great ; and that the
foresight of thjs manifest danger would justify him, if he insist
ed, as a sine qua non, to be made as potent at least as Austria ;
that he ought to have Hanover, Saxony, Hesse, and Holland
added to his kingdom, indemnifying in money or other terri
tory the ousted princes ; and thus he would be placed to fight
France with only the Rhine for a barrier ; but I added, that,
probably, neither of the parties to the coalition would agree to
his aggrandizement.

IT was not long after the disasters of Austria, before the king
of England, as elector of Hanover, declared to the king of
Prussia, that in no possible event would he alienate his Ger
man dominions. Such narrow views, such stiffness, at a time
which required yielding to a friend, lest he should have to yield
to a foe, still appear to me to merit the reproach of ruining the
coalition, and of excluding the king of Prussia when he was
willing to reinforce it. His late manifesto alludes darkly to
some of these facts. His gallant conduct in meeting Buona
parte in the field of battle was, probably, well and maturely
considered beforehand ; yet it has turned out wrong, for, if
he had led his army to join the Russians, the battle would have
been yet to fight, and the event might have been different. It
seems as if Frederick thought a defensive system a poor one
against the French. In that, no doubt, he was right ; still I
wish he had waited for the Russians.

I THINK, I have formerly communicated to you some reflec
tions I had made on the causes of the steady superiority main
tained in war by the French armies, and that I ascribed them
to their superiority in numbers, in cavalry, and in artillery.
From hence it follows, that fortified towns are of little signi
ficance, and small arms of much less than formerly. On each
of these heads I could dilate, but I think it needless to you.
But the consequence of this real superiority is, that the defen
sive system is no longer to be trusted. Nations could formerly
spin out a war, and tire down a foe. To conquer was, of course,
next to impossible. Since, however, the experience of the

514 LETTERS.

of all governments 'that very one in which the wise and good
are most completely reduced to impotence. Such men no
more deserve the reproach that their republicks fall, than that
ships are cast away at sea ; or, if I may drop all high metaphor
and speak like a farmer, that a fence falls, when it is support
ed by nothing but white birch stakes. It is the nature of these
to fail in two years ; and a republick wears out its morals
almost as soon as the sap of a white birch rots the wood.

AND are we not fated to have our present chief the longer
on account of his inefficiency ? His whole care is to be where
he is, and to do nothing to risk his place. Unless great pub-
lick disasters get the multitude angry with this do-nothing
policy, they will like it exceedingly. The chiefs of party, of
course, cannot get a handle to turn him out ; and their induce
ment to do it is always least, when the squad of the party that
is secretly opposed to him is the most clearly convinced of his
imbecility. It is not contempt, it is the dread of a really able
man at the head of a hostile party, that rouses all the fierce
ness of political competition.

IT is natural to ask, whether we are not hastening to the
time when publick disasters will make him obnoxious. It
seems to me probable, his election will happen first. Of course,
our country must remain unprepared, and be ruined, if it
please God to permit the British navy to belong to Buonaparte.
The Assyrian will tread us down like the mire of the streets.
I have read the tenth chapter of Isaiah, to which you refer me,
and I think it strikingly applicable to the French and to the
United States. As, however, the British navy may resist for
several years, we may be permitted without interruption to
finish our destruction ourselves.

I AM a little less disposed than most persons, to throw all
the blame of delaying to resist France on the king of Prussia.
Last fall I stated, that, unless the coalition would consent to
make him great, they had no right to expect to make him hos
tile to Buonaparte ; that small powers could not now exist in
Europe independent ; that Prussia would be ruined by France,
if he joined against her, and the coalition failed of its object ;

LETTERS. 515

lhat he would as certainly be ruined by his allies, if the coalition
succeeded, for he would be little and they great ; and that the
foresight of this manifest danger would justify him, if he insist
ed, as a sine qua non, to be made as potent at least as Austria ;
that he ought to have Hanover, Saxony, Hesse, and Holland
added to his kingdom, indemnifying in money or other terri
tory the ousted princes ; and thus he would be placed to fight
France with only the Rhine for a barrier ; but I added, that,
probably, neither of the parties to the coalition would agree to
his aggrandizement.

IT was not long after the disasters of Austria, before the king
of England, as elector of Hanover, declared to the king of
Prussia, that in no possible event would he alienate his Ger
man dominions. Such narrow views, such stiffness, at a time
which required yielding to a friend, lest he should have to yield
to a foe, still appear to me to merit the reproach of ruining the
coalition, and of excluding the king of Prussia when he was
willing to reinforce it. His late manifesto alludes darkly to
some of these facts. His gallant conduct in meeting Buona
parte in the field of battle was, probably, well and maturely
considered beforehand ; yet it has turned out wrong, for, if
he had led his army to join the Russians, the battle would have
been yet to fight, and the event might have been different. It
seems as if Frederick thought a defensive system a poor one
against the French. In that, no doubt, he was right ; still I
wish he had waited for the Russians.

I THINK, I have formerly communicated to you some reflec
tions I had made on the causes of the steady superiority main
tained in war by the French armies, and that I ascribed them
to their superiority in numbers, in cavalry, and in artillery.
From hence it follows, that fortified towns are of little signi
ficance, and small arms of much less than formerly. On each
of these heads I could dilate, but I think it needless to you.
But the consequence of this real superiority is, that the defen
sive system is no longer to be trusted. Nations could formerly
spin out a war, and tire down a foe. To conquer was, of course,
next to impossible. Since, however, the experience of the

516 LETTERS.

French system has evinced, that absolute conquest is no longer
an improbable event of a contest with France, it becomes ob
vious, that nations, who would be safe* must get the sort of force
that gives to France this tremendous superiority. Relying no
longer on a frontier of fortified towns, with strong garrisons
and a weak army of observation in the field, they must now
have numbers, cavalry, and artillery superior to the invader,
or make up their minds to submit to him. A navy, if we had
one, might hinder this invader from coming over. But if he
comes, he will be our master, if we have nothing but militia with
small arms to oppose his march. Indeed, his march would be a
quiet procession through the centre of the states from Nor
folk to New -York, little disturbed, and not at all obstructed by
myriads of popping militia. Such an enemy could get horses by
stripping the coasts. Our patriots too would, no doubt, supply
them for a good price. The light artillery they would bring
with them ; and as the French stow men as thick in their ships
as the Guinea traders do their negro slaves, they could bring
over fifty thousand troops and twenty thousand dismounted
dragoons. What could we do but join Duane in lamenting,
that we had so long suffered anglo-federai presses to provoke
the great nation ? Apropos of Duane, how audaciously insolent
he is on that subject.

THESE are my grounds for shewing, that, unless we prepare,
and on a great scale, we must submit whenever the English
give out.

I REALLY wish you would examine this, perhaps obscure,
sketch of the grounds of my military notions, to convince Mr.
Giles how defenceless we are, and how fallacious are his popu
lar ideas. The sing-song of Bunker hill Yankee heroes will
not do against the French. They understand their trade. An
inferiour army, even of regulars, would be exposed, would be
sure to have its flank turned ; and thus a victory would be won
without a chance to fight. With a numerous hostile cavalry,
there would be no chance for running away. Is any country,
then, more conquerable than the United States from New- York
Southward ? Even our Yankee land, though abounding in strong

LETTERS. 517

posts, would be destitute of men and means to occupy and
maintain them. My plan would be, that the utmost energies
of the United States should be called forth to equip a powerful
fleet of ships of the line, and to array a considerable body of
artillerists, and a military school of engineers, &c. and regiments
enough to supply officers ; the complement of men to be small.
On the whole, a less number than twelve thousand I should
think unsafe to trust to.

IF any fears of the danger to liberty should arise from such
an army, have a select militia three times as numerous of yeo
manry, encamped yearly in such numbers as would teach dis
cipline, and let that be perfect. To that end there must be
martial law in the camp.

I WELL know, that all this is moonshine, and that embarrass
ments in executing so great a plan would arise. The people
would think it madness; the federalists would be as much
afraid of arming as the democrats. I know too, as a conse
quence of all this, that we fall when the navy of our unthanked
champion is withdrawn. Fifty thousand real soldiers might
make us safe ; and we might have, and ought to have a navy
to block up Cadiz, Brest, and Toulon whenever England makes
peace, and our danger from France should make it necessary.

I WILL ask of Mr. ***** the perusal of your letter to him.

Your's &c.

FISHER AMES.

TO THE SAME.

DEDHAM, November 6tb, 1807.
MY DEAR SIR,

YOUR favour of the 28th October, covering the message
and documents referred to, reached me yesterday somewhat
unexpectedly. I had supposed you would not go on to Wash
ington before November. Besides, shut up half my time in a
sick chamber, and the other half in my parlour, I am unaffect
edly sensible of my insignificance. If, however, you and my
worthy friend Mr. ****** think fit sometimes to send me in-

518 LETTERS.

telligence, I shall be grateful. I am in the habit of thinking
your comments better than the text.

I WAS disgusted about a fortnight since, on reading a short
piece tending to shew, that Great Britain had the empire of
the sea and Buonaparte of the land ; that both obtained it by
fores, which gives, them all the rights they have, the one to
subjugate the nations, and the other to make and expound the
laws of nations. When federal newspapers publish such stuff,
are we to wonder at the folly of our people ? Have we any se
curity, as long as that folly or worse reigns ? I am ready to be
lieve, that we, as great boasters as the ancient Greeks, are the
most ignorant nation in the world, because we have had the
least experience. Fresh from the hands of a political mother,
who would not let us fall, we now think it impossible that we
should fall. Buonaparte will cure us of our presumption ; or
if that task should be left to some other rough teacher, we
shall learn at last the art, that is, the habits, manners, and pre
judices of a nation, especially the firejudices which are worth
more than philosophy, without which I venture to consider
our playing government as a sort of free negro attempt. It
would seem as if it were necessary, that we should endure
slavery for some ages, till every drop of democratick blood has
been got rid of by fermentation or bleeding. I dread to look
forward to the dismal scenes, through which my children are
to pass. As every nation has been trodden under foot, ground
in a mill, and purged in the fire of adversity, 1 know not why
\ve should hope for all fair weather and sunshine, for peace
and gainful commerce and an everlasting futurity of elysium,
before we have lived and suffered as others have done. We
seem to expect a state of felicity before a state of probation.
Of our six millions of people there are scarcely six hundred,
who yet look for liberty any where except on paper. Excuse
me — I am teazing you with a theme as trite and as tragical as
the Children in the Wood.

I THANK you from my heart for the offer of your corres
pondence. I am an outside passenger, and should like to know
what the gentlefolks are doing inside.

LETTERS. 519

MY health is exceedingly tender. While I sit by the fire
and keep my feet warm, I am not sick. I have heard of a
college lad's question, which tolerably describes my case :
" Whether bare being, without life or existence, is better than
not to be, or not ?" I cannot solve so deep a problem ; but
as long as you are pleased to allow me a place in your esteem,
I shall continue to hold better than " not to be" to be,
. Dear sir,

Your friend, &c.

FISHER AMES.

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